SCBMA cuts entrance fees; approves Bethea landscaping plan

Trustees for South Carolina Baptist Ministries for the Aging have eliminated some expensive entrance fees and tweaked other charges in a move designed to attract more residents to the two state Baptist retirement centers.

The board also endorsed a landscaping beautification plan for the 50-year-old Bethea Baptist Retirement Community in Darlington and approved a slate of facilities improvements at both Bethea and at Martha Franks Baptist Retirement Center in Laurens.

“It’s very gratifying when you go in with major proposals and the board is unanimous in its support,” said SCBMA president Richard McLawhorn.

Eliminating the substantial entrance fees will remove a “big impediment” for potential residents, McLawhorn said. He said that improvements to vacant residential facilities will help the ministry to “get the most out of what God has allowed us to have.”

“The more people we bring in, the more we will be able to keep future rate increases down,” he said.

Here are some of the changes that trustees approved for Martha Franks:

• Elimination of the $66,000 entrance fee for apartments, with implementation of an adjustable “refurbishing fee” of approximately $3,300

• An increase of $5 in the daily service fee for new apartment residents

• Conversion of one-room dormitory units to two rooms

• Implementation of $10,000 entrance fee for dormitory units

• Restructuring of entrance fees for cottages

At Bethea, trustees adopted the following changes:

• Elimination of entrance fees for cottages, apartments and homes in the “six-plex” building

• An increase of $5 in the daily service fee for new residents

• Implementation of an adjustable “refurbishing fee” for new residents (based on actual cost of refurbishing a unit)

• A campus-wide landscaping plan, including an underground irrigation system

• Conversion of one-room units to two rooms, with corresponding increase in maintenance fees