More than $700,000 in Cooperative Program funding will shift from Kentucky Baptist Convention entities and institutions to support international missions and other Southern Baptist Convention causes, if recommendations from a special advisory workgroup are approved. The KBC Mission Board was to consider the recommendations May 6-7.

The special advisory team to KBC Executive Director Paul Chitwood — tasked with studying the convention’s relationship with its 10 entities and institutions — presented their recommendations for adjusting the Cooperative Program allocations for each KBC entity to the Mission Board’s administrative committee.

Overall, the advisory workgroup provided details for reducing CP funding for KBC entities and institutions over a two-year period by $706,911 — from $5,181,911 in the state convention’s 2012-13 budget to $4,475,000 in 2014-15.

The recent round of CP adjustments come as a second step in the KBC’s move toward a 50/50 allocation between KBC and SBC causes, taking into account a reduction in the Cooperative Program resourcing portion from 10 percent to 7 percent. The first step entailed a reorganization of the Mission Board and the trimming of personnel by about one-third, for a net loss of 41 positions over the past decade.

A third step involves another advisory group currently strategizing for the future of the state’s Baptist campus ministry program.

“As I came to my role as executive director,” Chitwood said, “there was no question in my mind, nor in the search committee’s minds, that we were at a very critical and challenging place as a convention. With Cooperative Program giving continuing to be in decline and with us being staffed for a different era of ministry, we knew we needed to make some adjustments.

“No one is excited about their funding being reduced,” he said. “These are difficult days for all of us, and this will require sacrifice of each agency and institution.”