Following a tumultuous year in which a struggling South Carolina Baptist Ministries for the Aging received a generous outpouring of financial support from churches, individuals and the state convention, the ministry enters 2006 with renewed hope and a plan to hire a CEO and expand services at its Darlington campus.
In early 2005, the ministry faced impending bankruptcy, according to outgoing SCBMA board chairman Steve Williams, pastor of Kingstree First Baptist Church. But thanks to a surprise gift of $440,000 from the South Carolina Baptist Convention in February and a Mother’s Day offering from the churches that netted more than $1.2 million, the ministry has “righted the ship a little bit,” Williams said.
Still, SCBMA faces significant financial challenges, he said. The ministry is counting on a succession of robust Mother’s Day offerings – the goal for 2006 is $750,000 – in order to retire a long-term debt of more than $6 million and to fund depreciation costs at its two retirement facilities, Bethea Retirement Community in Darlington and Martha Franks Retirement Center in Laurens.
“It’s going to take us a while to get out of the woods and see a clearing,” Williams said. “It’s going to take a lot of smart business decisions and casting a new vision of how we’re going to operate the homes.”
For the immediate future, the board is investigating the feasibility of converting an independent-living wing at Bethea into an assisted-living facility, a move designed to raise the resident population. About half of the rooms at Bethea are currently occupied.
Also, Williams said the SCBMA board hopes to hire a president in early 2006 to fill a position that has remained vacant since January 2005.
The new president “will be somebody who can represent our ministry in the South Carolina Baptist churches,” Williams said.
Kirby Winstead, director of missions for Pickens-Twelve Mile Association and newly installed SCBMA board chairman, confirmed that the board’s personnel committee will meet Jan. 12, followed by a called board meeting on Jan. 19 and a regularly scheduled board meeting on Feb. 16.
In a draft of a letter he plans to send to South Carolina Baptist pastors, Winstead wrote: “Just as in baseball where a relief pitcher is needed to give the opposition a different look, a change in administrative leadership often brings new ideas and a fresh approach to dealing with old problems.”
In July 2005, the ministry hired a healthcare management company to begin handling day-to-day operations at Bethea in an effort to streamline expenditures and boost revenues at the 50-year-old retirement facility.
The decision to hire the management company has already begun to pay off, Williams said. “I think things are going really well financially,” he said. “We are able to sustain ourselves day to day without having to dip into cash reserves.”
Also in 2005, SCBMA began the process of filing documents to make Martha Franks and Bethea each a limited liability corporation. Williams said the move is designed to free up the management company running Bethea to process the payroll and execute other budget matters more efficiently.
“This is the way the nursing home industry is operating today,” he said. “It will not change anything as far as how we do our business.”