ATLANTA — The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) announced deep staff cuts Jan. 28, citing lingering financial woes.
According to a news release, 13 positions have been eliminated and one reclassified. Two of the jobs will move to contract positions.
The layoffs will reduce the size of the Atlanta-based fellowship’s staff to 42 full-time positions. That includes three field coordinators in Virginia, Tennessee and Texas that are shared with state CBF organizations and one job shared with the CBF Foundation.
“These have been among the most difficult decisions I’ve had to make during my tenure at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship,” said Daniel Vestal, the fellowship’s executive coordinator since 1996. “In spite of our previous efforts, with the downturn in the economy and the ongoing financial challenges of the churches and individuals that make up this fellowship, we had to address the shortfall by reducing the size of our staff.”
Vestal declined to discuss specifics of the staff cuts until after he reports the details to the CBF Coordinating Council at the group’s next scheduled meeting Feb. 24–25.
The downsizing follows two straight years of contingency spending to cope with budget shortfalls. In 2009, the fellowship averted layoffs by cutting staff salaries by 1 percent, reducing contributions to employee retirement plans and scaling back funding for CBF partner organizations by 30 percent.
Last summer, the CBF adopted a budget of $14.5 million for 2010–2011, down from $16.1 million the previous year. Four months into the current fiscal year, revenue was running 20 percent below that budget.
None of the lost jobs involved CBF missionaries, although field personnel are operating with reduced budgets. Last June, Vestal said that unless giving increases to the fellowship’s Global Missions Offering, sooner or later missionaries would have to be recalled.
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