With a retroactive change to its business and financial policies and procedures, the Executive Board of the South Carolina Baptist Convention effectively ensured that the 2012 SCBC budget finished in the black and an allocation of nearly $416,000 was freed up to send to the International Mission Board.
The Executive Board met by telephone conference call Feb. 25 to consider amendments from the board’s budget, finance and audit committee to change the way year-end gifts from churches are counted. In previous years, gifts received after 12 noon on Dec. 31 were counted in the next year’s receipts.
With the amended procedures, gifts postmarked by Dec. 31 and received by Jan. 7 will be counted in the previous year’s budget.
Electronic gifts must have a transaction date on or before Dec. 31, said Pam Carroll, SCBC chief financial officer. Hand-delivered contributions will still be required by Dec. 31.
There were 52 Executive Board members participating in the meeting; 41 board members constitute a quorum.
The amendments were presented by Steve Cartin, chairman of the board’s budget, finance and audit committee.
The first three amendments, altering the board’s business and financial plan and the financial policies and procedures of the SCBC, met with little opposition. Each amendment was approved with at least 50 of the 52 votes.
During consideration of the final amendment, which applied the changes retroactively to the 2012 budget, a motion to table discussion until the board’s April meeting failed. When a vote was called on the final amendment, it was approved 46-4 by board members.
Tom Tucker, Executive Board chairman, said he was contacted by convention president Ralph Carter regarding the intent of churches to have receipts received by the convention prior to Jan. 7, 2013, actually count toward 2012 giving.
“When Ralph brought this to my attention, I thought about my own church,” Tucker said. “Because Dec. 30, 2012, was a Sunday, it was impossible for our church to mail those 2012 receipts and have them to the convention by Monday, Dec. 31, for counting in 2012. We could not mail our receipts from Dec. 30, 2012, until Jan. 2, 2013. So this discussion was really initiated with the intent of our churches in mind.”
Without the financial policy changes, the convention would have finished $717,500 short of funding the $28.6 million budget in 2012. More than $740,000 was received from churches in the first week of 2013, reflecting offerings received by the churches in 2012.
– Compiled from a report by the SCBC communications office.