Operations Commission
March 3, 2013
9:00 a.m.
Minutes
Douglas, MD, Montgomery
Ebarb, MD, Ray – chairman
Johnston, MD, Belinda
Josefski, MD, Mark
Kaplan, MD, Phil - president
Krotowski, MD, Mark
Merritt, MD, Drew
Molnar, MD, Tom
Nepola, MD, Neil
Salzberg, MD, Paul
Grasso, MPA, CAE, Vito
Names in bold were in attendance.
Minutes of 10/23/12 Meeting
The minutes were accepted as recorded.
Treasurer’s Report
Introduction
This report examines our finances as of February 15, 2013. Our formal financial statement consists of a balance sheet which compares assets and liabilities, a profit & loss statement which illustrates our operational status for the current fiscal year, accounts payable and accounts receivable.
Our balance sheet shows assets of $1,087.494.08. The breakdown below shows assets that are available to fund our operations. This includes cash accounts which are available to us to pay expenses.
Operating Funds
As of 02/15/13 we have the following balances in our operating and investment accounts:
12/31/2012 / 2/15/2013General Fund Checking / $ 23,396.90 / $ 74,021.33
Money Market Account: / $ 39,102.05 / $ 139,103.71
Manning & Napier investment fund*: / $ 703,655.56 / $ 703,655.56
PAC / $ 3,289.40 / $ 5,089.40
Foundation Checking: / $ 9,245.34 / $ 9,449.01
Foundation Money Market Account: / $ 22,426.83 / $ 47,426.83
County chapter accounts: / $ 33,648.44 / $ 29,722.93
TOTAL: / $ 834,764.52 / $ 1,008,468.77
* This figure has not been adjusted yet by our auditor. The auditor typically adjusts assets each quarter. For this account that process includes differentiating market value and income.
We have over $1,000,000 on hand to support operations through the next twelve months. Since our entire budget for the year is just over a million dollars, we are in excellent shape from an operational perspective. Our dues income tends to decrease dramatically from June until October when next year’s invoices are generated by the AAFP.
Revenues
We have received $220,234.12 in dues. This is 31% of the 2013 dues budget of $696,448.75.Total revenues are $270,859.24.
We are projecting a $6,000 profit for this year’s Winter Weekend. Student attendance was up and we raised more than $35,000 for the Dr. Hart Fund. The Curling event Saturday evening was a big success.
Additional upcoming programs include Regional Family Medicine Conferences Downstate in April, Rochester in May, and Capital District in September. A small ALSO course was just held on February 17 and we are planning additional ALSO courses for NYC.
Our Quarterly Journal has been a great success in terms of readership and content. It has, however, been expensive to produce and distribute. Advertising support is growing but we have experienced a net loss of approximately $25,000 since inception. We plan to close this gap by increasing advertising and, eventually, producing the journal for electronic distribution only.
Our employment service was launched the week of February 18 and will generate revenue for us. We will also launch weekly electronic news brief in the next two months that will generate additional advertising revenue. Multiview will produce it for us. Multiview is the leading producer of news briefs for associations in the country with annual sales of more than $100 million, more than 62,000 advertisers and more than $20 million in royalties distributed to clients. We will have access to national and regional advertisers who are pre-qualified as health and medical advertisers. We can also target these advertisers for our journal and for exhibits at our conferences.
Expenses
Expenses through February 15 total $147,669.54 which is 13.8% of the $1,068,726.39 we have budgeted for operating expenses. Our operating surplus through 2/15 is $123,161.36.
Accounts Payable & Accounts Receivable
We have a positive cash balance of $2,952.78 in our accounts payable and receivable: $7,705.56 in payables and $10,658.34 in receivables.
Conclusion
Through February 15 we have Net Income of$123,161.36. Our auditor was in February 13 and will have adjustments as of December 31, 2012. We have not accounted for any change in the earning or market value of our investment account. That account has grown this year so application of the adjusted value to this financial report would likely reduce the deficit.
We are in good operating condition.
There was discussion regarding the costs and revenue sources for WW. Vito and Donna will produce a report summarizing all revenue sources applied, including the resident & student lines in the budget and the Foundation’s Dr. Hart Fund, and all costs.
There was also discussion regarding how to determine whether attending WW has any impact on whether students who attend WW ultimately select FM.
Headquarters Relocation
We have been in active negotiations with the new owner of the building we currently are located in. They have not closed on the purchase yet but they are very interested in keeping us. We are discussing expansion of our space to accommodate more space for Kelly and Janet, who currently share space, and to use for storage to allow us to close a separate storage space we rent off premises. Our IT person, Anthony Sfeir, also needs an office and has expressed interest in subletting an office from us.
Old Business
Dr. Merritt reported on his comparison of our bylaws with the new AAFP bylaws. We must advise the AAFP of any changes we make in our bylaws by the 2013 AAFP COD. Our membership classes must conform to the AAFP’s. There are some mandatory areas of consistency, essentially the classes of membership. The commission discussed several changes in our bylaws to simply replace existing language regarding membership with language from the AAFP bylaws.
Dr. Merritt cited new language in the AAFP bylaws regarding the definition of “good standing.” Vito will write to the AAFP to request clarification of what this section means by “disciplinary action.”
The commission approved the following changes:
Bylaws,
Chapter 1:
Delete Sections 1-10, retain and renumber sections 11-13. Replace sections 1-10 with AAFP Article III. Add AAFP section regarding “good standing” as section 10 after section regarding student membership.
Chapter 2: (Fellowship)
Replace our chapter 2 with AAFP Article IV (Fellow)
Chapter 3:
Delete the entire chapter and replace with AAFP Article XIV (Ethics). Change title of section 3 of the AAFP bylaws from “Censure” to “Censure & Appeal.”
Chapter 5:
Delete the $300 cap on dues and remove language regarding “initiation fee” and “special assessments”. Change title to “Dues & Assessments.” Delete section 2 altogether. Delete section 3 altogether. Delete section 4 altogether. Retain the first sentence only of section 8.
Chapter 6:
Delete “or when their respective successors are elected” at the end of the first sentence.
Chapter 7:
There was discussion regarding whether we should fill a vacancy in the office of president-elect. Dr. Josefski will draft an amendment to address this.
Chapter 11:
Delete in entirety.
Chapter 12:
Sturgis has been renamed American Institute of Parliamentary Standards of Procedure. (Dr. Molnar will find the correct name.)
There was also discussion regarding whether we should add an indemnification provision to our bylaws similar to what exists in the AAFP bylaws.
Vito will check with legal counsel to ascertain whether we need to have a constitution and if that document should be made consistent with our bylaws.
The commission recommended that our bylaws lines be numbered consecutively through the entire document instead of by page.
New Business
Vito reported on the Ten State Conference. He has received many positive comments from people who attended. He thanked Dr. Krotowski for taking several guests on a walking tour of NYC. Participants were very pleased and impressed with the tour and with the fact the Dr. Krotowski took the time to organize the tour. Dr. Sarah Nosal also accompanied the tour and contributed to the orientation of guests to the City.
Dr. Ebarb discussed his plan to approach the three orphan schools in NYS about establishing departments of FM. He has discussed this with Dr. Stream, AAFP board chairman, and with Perry Pugno, MD, of the AAFP staff and the staff person with particular expertise in this area. Dr. Ebarb would like to organize a delegation to visit with the deans of these schools. He would like the delegation to include senior elected officials from the AAFP and NYSAFP. Students will also be included. Vito will look into asking Commissioner Shah and Assemblyman Gottfried to also attend the meetings. Discussion focused on Cornell. Dr. Molnar has taken students from Cornell to precept. Dr. Linda Prine is a graduate of Cornell and is also president of the NYSAFP New York Chapter.
Dr. Ebarb reported that Dr. Nepola requested a bylaws amendment whereby our immediate past president would become chair of our board instead of electing a board chair from among the three senior directors. Dr. Kaplan suggested that our current practice is better than having the IPP become board chair.
The commission approved a motion to request that all commissions include review of the website as a regular item on all meeting agendas and that the commissions advise the chair of operations and staff of any changes that are necessary.
The commission approved October 19-20 for the fall cluster and Albany as the location.
The meeting adjourned at 12:40 p.m.
Recorded By,
Vito F. Grasso, MPA, CAE
Executive Vice President