Friday, April 1, 2011

After 13 years, small dues increase necessary to balance POA’s budget


We spend either a great deal of time or a great deal of money keeping our books or having someone keep them for us. We have office managers, accountants or tax advisors at a minimum. That is unless we take on the impossible task of paying bills, paying staff and monitoring things like fixed costs and cost of goods between patients and in our "free" time.

I want you to know, or remind you, that we have the very best people in place at the POA office to "keep" our professional association’s books for us as well. The staff and volunteer leaders we have in place to budget our money and manage our programming are second to none. They were tasked with designing a budget for the 2012 calendar year very early in 2011. While obviously difficult, they have historically done a great job at projecting income and expenses, sometimes eighteen to twenty months in advance. The reality of it is that we have ended some fiscal years in the black and some in the red. This has enabled us to propose twelve straight dues-neutral budgets to the POA House of Delegates.

Despite priding ourselves in being fiscally responsible, we have ended the past two years with meaningful deficits. This has been due to a combination of an increase in costs, a decrease in dues income and a decrease in non-dues income as well. We have all felt the increase in operating costs over the past twelve years – there is no mystery there. Our dues income has been falling despite our membership numbers holding steady. How can that be? We have seen an increase in the number of "Life" members as the AOA (2007), and subsequently the POA (2008), made changes in by-laws lowering the age requirement for Life membership by 10 years, which increases our number of non-dues paying members. We have also seen a shift in membership to "Partial Practice" and other less-than-full dues categories. All of these changes have resulted in a decrease in the amount of our dues income.

Surprisingly, our budget is only about 55% dues revenue with the balance coming from our non-dues income. We have also seen a decrease, or at least a lack of growth, in non-dues income. We have fewer people participating in POA programming and revenue-generating activities.

The results: a proposed 2012 budget at the 2011 House of Delegates in State College that has a small dues increase. We have concentrated in the past on controlling programming expenses and keeping dues rates flat but this has not allowed us to cover increases in operating expenses. The hope is that this small increase will also allow for development and expansion of some POA programming that had been impossible in the past. Our goal is ultimately to serve you, our membership, and to provide you with the highest level of programming and advocacy. So review the proposed budget for 2012 on page 4 of the April Keystoner and attend our May 2011 POA House of Delegates in State College. See you there and, again, thanks for your ear.






Daniel F. Russell, O.D.
President
Pennsylvania Optometric Association