DALLAS (ABP) – The Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board voted Sept. 27 to recommend a budget that reduces funding for Baylor University while giving more dollars to 10 other schools.
The spending plan, to be recommended to messengers at the BGCT annual meeting Oct. 24-26 in Amarillo, reduces funds for Baylor from $2.8 million to $1.9 million. In the past Texas Baptists have given all schools a baseline amount plus additional funding based on student enrollment. This year the “pro-rata” portion goes only to institutions that are “affiliated” with the BGCT, meaning the convention elects at least 75 percent of the board of trustees.
As the largest of the Texas Baptist schools, Baylor in the past benefitted most from the funding based on head count. The state convention elects just 25 percent of Baylor’s board of regents and relates to the university in Waco through a contractual agreement.
“Our participation in their governance is much less than it is with our affiliated institutions,” said Steven Vernon, acting executive director of the BGCT quoted by the Baylor Lariat. “So the question comes: Do you make a distinction between those who are affiliated and those who relate to us by special agreement?”
Another Executive Board recommendation would change the special agreement relationship by giving Baylor more input into the nomination of the six regents elected by the BGCT and removing a clause in the old version that says all members of Baylor’s board of directors must be Baptist.
Those changes are the result of renegotiation of an agreement struck in 1991, after Baylor started electing its own regents, which before then were selected by the BGCT. Those talks were initiated after Baylor regents voted in February to allow up to one-quarter of its membership to come from non-Baptist Christian backgrounds.
Critics of the move said Baylor broke its 1991 promise to elect only Baptist regents, while supporters cited another part of the agreement recognizing that Baylor has the legal right to change its governing documents without approval or consent of the BGCT.
The $900,000 reduction amounts to about one-fifth of 1 percent of Baylor’s $428 million budget this year, but Baylor President Ken Starr said BGCT funding provides 15 percent of Baylor’s religion department budget and 10 percent of Baptist student ministries funding.
He did not oppose the budget outright, however.
“We are disappointed but understanding and respectful of the process,” Starr said, according to the Baptist Standard. “Baylor will not be mounting an appeal, especially because we understand if changes are made in the proposed budget that would be taking resources from our sibling institutions.”
The proposed budget increases funding for Baptist University of the Americas, Dallas Baptist University, East Texas Baptist University, Hardin Simmons University, Logsdon Seminary, Houston Baptist University, Howard Payne University, University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, Wayland Baptist University and San Marcos Baptist Academy. It also earmarks just over $1 million for Baylor’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary, while slashing Baylor’s undergraduate funding by more than half.
Of those schools, only Houston Baptist University is not affiliated but like Baylor relates to the convention by special agreement. The school still will receive more money from the BGCT, however, because a baseline amount reduced to $215,000 after HBU entered into special agreement is being restored to a full $625,000 level in 2012.
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Bob Allen is managing editor of Associated Baptist Press.