nineteen hundred and forty-six - Amazon Web Services

450 SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION
for this token sum to be distributed to us this year rather than our prorata part
of the $3,000,000 was that the mission boards and the seminaries had such
urgent need for additional capital funds. This was but the repetition of what
took place in 1920 when, in the inteerst of the mission boards and the seminaries,
the previously approved $5,000,000 allocation to the Relief and Annuity
Board was reduced to $2,500,000. Reduced allocations have been made since
1920 in serving the same causes. We sincerely trust that the promise held out
to us, that the proper allocations to us of the post war funds would be made
after 1946, will be faithfully carried out. During the debt-paying campaign, the
Relief and. Annuity Board, although it had great potential liabilities, made no
claim for a place at the family table. We now must seek by every proper appeal
to secure that place and hold it.
ADDENDA
1. We call the attention of the convention to the fact that our operating
cost, while increasing in terms of dollars every year, is decreasing in ratio of
expense to income. During 1945, our operating cost was approximately 4% of
the total income. This, compared with other denominational pension agencies in
the United States, shows that we are below them in this cost. The average
operating expense of twenty agencies reporting to the Church Pensions Conferences
was 5.3% of the income. A few years ago our operating cost in relation
to income amounted to 12%.
2. Another important item is that of the 1103 members of the Ministers
Retirement Plan who were eligible to retire from the beginning of the plan to
December 31, 1945, 733 actually retired. The ratio of the number of retirements
to the number eligible to retire in the several states varies a good deal.
In Maryland it was only 35.5%, in Mississippi 40.3%, in Alabama 47.7%, Arkansas
51%; one other ran as high as 77.5%, and another 74%, and others from
55.5% in Georgia to 69% in Virginia. The average ratio for all the states, with
the exception of North Carolina, latest data for which was unavailable, was
66.5%. Last year we reported the retirements in North Carolina as 29.6% of
those eligible to retire, and in that year the general average in the South was
42.15%. We had reason to expect an increase in the number of retirements after
the close of the war, and this rise in ratio is well nigh sure to continue during
1946.
3. We think that our experience in the matter of collection of dues in the
several states has been quite encouraging. Of course, there are many delinquents
among the preachers and some among the churches. However, the
over-all picture is encouraging. As best we can determine, the delinquent dues
among the preachers amount to approximately 10%, and the delinquent dues
among the churches approximately 7%. However, many churches are paying
5 eir *r, U r eS ono en w ^en pastors become delinquent. To state it another way, of
the $445,208 due to have been paid by ministers $410,519 was paid in 1945,
while the churches paid $467,878.34, which was several thousand dollars more
than the churches as a whole were due to pay. This was due to the fact that
some churches that were without pastors continued to make their payments into
the C and C fund. The state convention boards pay 2/3 as much-as the
preachers actually pay and no more. Therefore, the dues of the Convention are
paid m full every month.
4. The Conferences at Ridgecrest will be resumed this year, running through
June, July and August, and will furnish our Board opportunities for much
promotional work in all the plans, and particularly this year in the Widows
Supplemental Annuity Plan.
5. We are pleased to report the following educational institutions voting to
come into our Educational Institutions Plan since January 1 1945- Southern
Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky; Baylor University Waco
Texas; Mercer University/ Macon, Georgia; Campbell College Buie's Creek'
North Carolina; Southwest Baptist College, Bolivar, Missouri; Wayland College'
Plainview, Texas; John B. Stetson University, DeLand, Florida- Harrison Chilhowee
Academy, Seymour, Tennessee. Other institutions entering our Orphanage
Plan are the Tennessee Baptist Orphanage, Franklin, Tennessee and the
Georgia Baptist Children's Home, Hapeville, Georgia.
Widows of the 6. In State Supplemental this Conventions section Annuity of our and report Plan Boards which Exhibit and has made F been is a given approved budget the item by full practically bv text them of the for
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