DALLAS (ABP) — A five-month investigation uncovered evidence church-starting funds from the Baptist General Convention of Texas were misused between 1999 and 2005 in the Rio Grande Valley.
Independent investigators discovered about 98 percent of the 258 church starts reported by three pastors in the Valley no longer exist — and some never existed, except on paper. The BGCT gave more than $1.3 million in start-up funding and monthly financial support to those 258 churches.
Otto Arango
The pastors named were Otto Arango, Aaron De La Torre and Armando Vera. They could not be reached immediately for comment.
The investigation uncovered poor oversight, uneven management, failure to abide by internal guidelines and misplaced trust by some BGCT church-starting staff leaders in Dallas.
Investigators noted BGCT leaders failed to investigate thoroughly charges of impropriety, even though some staffers knew about irregularities in the church-starting program in the Valley.
Even an FBI investigation in 2000-2001 regarding allegations of fraud failed to prompt a serious internal investigation, the report noted. However, investigators found no evidence that BGCT personnel profited from the scam or were guilty of collusion.
The former director and associate director of the BGCT Church Starting Center left the BGCT staff Oct. 25, one day after the findings of the investigation were revealed to Executive Board leaders. According to memos circulated to the BGCT staff, Abe Zabeneh, former director and now a church starter, resigned, and David Guel, former associate director and now a BGCT consultant, retired.
BGCT
Diane Dillard, Brownsville attorney, presenting results of independent investigation of allegations regarding misappropriation of BGCT church-starting funds.
Officers of the BGCT and its Executive Board had enlisted Brownsville attorney Diane Dillard to conduct an independent investigation of alleged mishandling of church-starting funds in the Valley. Dillard and her colleague, Michael Rodriguez, presented their findings to a called meeting of the BGCT Executive Board Oct. 31 in Dallas.
Key findings included:
— Some church starts in the Valley were fictitious “phantom churches” that existed only on paper.
— While some house churches in the Valley developed into autonomous congregations, a large number of the home-based groups did not qualify as “churches” under the BGCT Church Starting Center's guidelines.
— De La Torre and Arango misused church start-up funds to fund book printing and other ministry work. Vera deposited church-starting funds into a general missions fund, which is against BGCT guidelines. Investigators did not find “substantiated proof” that funds were used for personal gain.
— New church development guidelines were not followed in some instances, and missions director E. B. Brooks allegedly relaxed guidelines for certain pastors, according to David Guel, a church-starting consultant with the BGCT.
— BGCT staff members, including David Guel, knew some BGCT start-up funds were provided to house churches that did not qualify as churches; Vera commingled BGCT start-up funds in the general account of a sponsoring church; leftover BGCT start-up funds usually were not returned after a new church disbanded; and BGCT start-up funds for specific churches sometimes were used for other church starts, mission work of a sponsoring church or the sponsoring church itself.
— Investigators found some BGCT church start-up money was used for missions in Latin America; De La Torre and Arango allegedly split some new church start-up gifts 50-50; and some BGCT church start-up checks were deposited into a personal account; but there is no evidence any BGCT employee knew some church starts were “phantom churches” that only existed on paper.
— Investigators found “no evidence that anyone at the BGCT received money for personal gain” in connection with the church start-up program in the Valley.
Investigators pointed to evidence some BGCT staff knew about examples of irregularities in the church-starting program in the Valley, but they found no evidence the convention staff conducted a thorough investigation into allegations.
“The BGCT should have recognized at least some of the red flags,” Dillard said. “However, no evidence of a thorough investigation of these matters was provided to the investigators. The lack of written investigation reports, summaries or memoranda in the BGCT files suggests that the allegations were not seen as credible.
“When asked, the BGCT witnesses had no logical explanation why there was not a thorough BGCT investigation into the allegations,” she added.
The investigators presented several recommendations to the Executive Board:
–Guidelines for church starting should be reviewed and revised.
–The BGCT needs more accurate and accessible information about new-church “mortality” rates, or the percentage of new churches that fail and the percentage that remain active.
Investigators noted the BGCT reported 357 new churches in the Valley with 157 active (44 percent). Of the new churches in the Valley started by the top four sponsoring congregations, the BGCT reported 258 with 100 active (39 percent). However, their interviews presented a different picture. Of the 357 total, only 62 were active (17 percent), and of the churches started by the top four sponsors, only five were active (2 percent).
— Record-keeping needs to be integrated and coordinated between program areas in the BGCT staff structure.
“The inability of the BGCT to correlate data kept under three different numbering systems impeded the progress and dramatically increased the cost for the investigation. It also prevents the presentation of meaningful data to decision-makers,” Dillard concluded. “The BGCT should have a system whereby all data regarding the funding of a new church, including all transactions, can be easily accessed in one location or reporting mechanism.”
— Better internal controls over disbursements are needed to make sure all necessary support documentation is verified. The investigators suggested an internal auditor might be useful.
— The BGCT accounting department should perform the control and design of the reporting system. While other departments could give input to the reporting system's design, the final decision should rest with the accounting department.
— Trust but verify. “Relying on trust, although an admirable trait, does not serve accountability measures well,” the report said. “The church-starting center is not a business, and some may argue that it should not be viewed or policed like a business. However, the BGCT is the steward of the money given for missions work; therefore, those funds and their use should be monitored, documented and controlled.”
E. B. Brooks, retired director of the BGCT missions, evangelism and ministry area, read the report posted on the Baptist Standard website and noted he disagreed with several opinions offered by the investigators.
“The most prominent is the opinion that we did not treat the concerns in the Rio Grande Valley with seriousness. We did,” Brooks said.
He also took issue with what he called “the lack of indication in the report” that BGCT staff took action to deal with problems regarding deviation from the prescribed guidelines for church starting. “We did several things in response to both obvious lapses and rumored misdeeds,” he said.
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(Additional information and expanded coverage will follow after the individuals named in the report are contacted and given the opportunity to respond.)
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