Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/109814
Conservative budget reflects stable membership Finance Task Force proposes two-year budget for your review - by Karen Crouse Treasurer he DSEA Budget for fiscal years 2014 and 2015, presented here by the Finance Committee, has been reviewed and approved by the DSEA Executive Board. It now goes to the Representative Assembly (RA) on March 9 for debate and final adoption. It is presented here for your review. Please share your comments or concerns with delegates to the RA from your local. Members of the committee have worked diligently over the last several months reviewing our financial health and developing a financial plan that will cover the next two years. The group continues to place emphasis on our strategic areas of advocacy, membership, political action and systems and technology As with most budget . processes, there are more requests than resources. T Unknown impact of federal budget cuts keeps us conservative In light of the economic situation in the state and country, we were conservative in making increases in our dues income in light of unknown funding cuts to education. Dues are calculated by formula based upon state salary scales so we did project a 1% increase in dues revenue. It is necessary to point out that DSEA hasn���t changed its dues formula since 1999. With the unknown budget cuts that could take place federally, the committee will continue to monitor the situation and possibly have adjustment recommendations for the second www.dsea.org year of the budget. A budget is a working document that, from time to time, needs to be altered and that is the fiscal responsibility of the Executive Board. To highlight some of the requests made this year, we will start with our staff Salary and Benefit section. The budget proposal doesn���t show an increase for raises as we are currently entering into bargaining and wanted to bargain in good faith by not setting a predetermined increase; therefore, we placed additional monies in our contingency fund for salary increases and other organizational needs. Program areas stay constant In the program areas of the budget staff made presentations to the Task Force. We then placed those requests in the budget with some reductions. The reductions were agreed upon by both the committee and staff making the presentations. In many areas, we aligned the budget with actual previous expenditures which still allowed all program areas to accomplish their goals for the organization and membership. e thank the Finance Task Force members for all of their long evenings and hard work: Clay Beauchamp (Lake Forest), Denise Waples (Milford), Maureen Keeney (New Castle Vo Tech), Dom Zaffora (Woodbridge), Rich Phillips (president, DSEA-Retired), Karen Crouse (DSEA treasurer), Mike Hoffmann (DSEA vice president), Debbie Stevens (DSO staff union representative), Frederika Jenner (DSEA president), Jeff Taschner (executive director) and Judy Anderson (business manager). W Calendar/datebook replaced with more funding for locals The Task Force did make recommendations to build stronger community relationships and member relationships so there are a few new lines. In addition to building stronger member relationships, it was recommended to not print the two-year calendar after the FY13 printing which is in the current budget. This change will allow DSEA to help locals with referendum efforts, and school board elections; and give local officers additional release time to work on member issues. If we are about helping our members, we need to place our resources to adequately allow us to make an impact in the areas where we have the ability to do so. In order to have public education viewed in a positive manner, we can���t wait for others to tell our story We must tell it . ourselves. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Karen Crouse, treasurer, at karen. crouse@dsea.org or Judy Anderson, CPA, DSEA���s business manager, at judy.anderson @dsea.org. February 2013 DSEA ACTION! 11