Academic leaders at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary will spend another year looking for solutions to recover from a financial crisis that caused the institution to receive a warning from its accreditor.

Last month, the Board of Trustees for the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges revisited a warning it placed on the seminary in June 2023. The warning followed a document the school’s leadership released revealing that the seminary had accumulated a $140 million deficit between 2002 and 2022.

The accreditors placed the seminary on a two-year monitoring period and will issue a report on the school’s status each year. Accreditors released their first monitoring report June 20.

In 2023, the board cited three reasons for placing the seminary on notice: failing to demonstrate compliance with board governance, financial resources and financial responsibility. Now, the seminary remains on warning status for only two matters: financial resources and institutional financial responsibility, according to the accreditor’s June report.

Seminary President David S. Dockery said in a June 24 statement that the accreditor’s decision to no longer include the school’s governance as an area of concern was “a positive step forward for the institution.”

“The current administration and board of trustees, with support from the faculty and staff, will continue to work diligently to aggressively reduce institutional spending in the current budget year as well as in the forthcoming 2023-24 budget year, which includes significant reduction in personnel costs, while prioritizing the educational mission of the seminary,” he said.