CBF cuts budget in response to giving drop

ATLANTA — The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, facing a shortfall in contributions, will reduce spending 10 percent this fiscal year and use up to $1 million from reserves to stave off deeper cuts.

Members of the CBF Coordinating Council, meeting in Atlanta Feb. 20–22, dealt with those budget cuts and adopted a less ambitious budget for its next fiscal year, which begins July 1.

Philip Wise, chair of the group’s finance committee, told the council $1.8 million has been cut from the organization’s $18 million budget for 2002-03. Most of those reductions were from within the organization — including $888,000 from its missions program — with another $638,000 coming from CBF’s ministry partners.

Wise, pastor of Second Baptist Church in Lubbock, Texas, blamed the slow economy and its effect on CBF’s donors, primarily churches. “We can’t control how the money comes in,” he explained.

The budget to be recommended for next fiscal year is $17.9 million — 9 percent less than the original 2002-03 budget but still 7 percent more than the reduced budget.