Executive Board okays ’07 budget; no nominee yet for exec. director

The Executive Board approved a 2007 operating budget of $32,750,000 for the South Carolina Baptist Convention at the board’s Oct. 9-10 meeting at White Oak Conference Center.

White Oak Conference Center

The proposed budget, which will be voted on by messengers to the state convention meeting Nov. 14-15 at First Baptist Church, Taylors, represents an increase of $600,000 over the 2006 figure.

Each new convention budget is determined by the actual receipts for the previous year. Mike Moody, who chairs the Executive Board’s budget, finance and audit committee, said that South Carolina Baptists have met or exceeded their annual budgets for the past 10 years, except for 2003.

He did note what he called an “alarming trend” — a drop in percentage giving of undesignated funds through the Cooperative Program from 9.11 percent in 1996 to 7.9 percent in 2005.

The proposed 2007 budget earmarks $13,045,000, or 40 percent, for the Southern Baptist Convention while providing $19,705,000, or 60 percent, for South Carolina Baptist Convention work.

The 2007 budget also provides that contributions exceeding budget requirements be placed in a Kingdom Challenge Fund, which would be divided 50-50 between the Southern Baptist Convention and the South Carolina Kingdom Challenge Fund. The challenge fund is for special mission opportunities that may occur.

In the proposed budget, South Carolina Baptist Ministries for the Aging would have a one-time adjustment of $99,000 tacked onto its regular budget to help continue what Moody called a “miraculous turnaround” by that institution. The Cooperative Program allocation for SCBMA would increase from $1,337,830 in 2006 to $1,436,830 in 2007. The 2008 allocation to Ministries for the Aging would be based on the 2006, not the 2007, figure.

The Executive Board also heard a report from Tim Williams, chairman of the search committee to find a successor to Carlisle Driggers, who retires at the end of February as executive director-treasurer of the South Carolina Baptist Convention.

On behalf of the seven-member panel drawn from the Executive Board, Williams thanked South Carolina Baptists for their prayer support and said, “God is leading. God is working.”

The committee, he said, has “no desire other than to find the man that God wants for South Carolina.” The committee had hoped to have a candidate to present to the Executive Board for approval followed by his election at the November convention.

If a candidate emerges before the November convention, a special session of the Executive Board would keep that schedule on track. If no candidate is offered at the November meeting in Taylors, a special convention would be required.

In response to the report by Williams, Executive Board chairman Mike Hamlet said that people who had talked with him about the a new executive expressed more concern about securing “the right man” than about the time taken by the committee to fulfill its assignment.

Hamlet offered a prayer that God would “bring into focus clearly” the person to lead South Carolina Baptists. He asked God to “work out the schedule and put your hand on that person.”

The Executive Board also voted unanimously to name Carlisle Driggers executive director-treasurer emeritus upon his retirement after 15 years at the helm of the South Carolina Baptist Convention.