NPPA Board Passes Budget, Elects National Officers

 

By Donald. R. Winslow
© 2009 News Photographer magazine

LAS VEGAS, NV (June 10, 2009) – On the final day of NPPA's annual business meeting the board of directors approved a plan for implementing the new governance structure they created yesterday when they adopted new bylaws, they elected national officers, updated and modified language in the organization's Polices & Procedures to reflect NPPA's current activities, and they passed a six-month "gap" budget for the remainder of the year.

President Bob Carey and vice president Sean D. Elliot were re-elected by the board, Denise McGill returns as national secretary (she's in the middle of a two-year term), and Sarah Evans was elected treasurer. Outgoing treasurer Jim Sulley pledged to work with Evans to make the budgetary transfer as smooth as possible, and to work with the Executive Committee and the new incoming board members as they prepare the new 2010 calendar year budget. Also, board members Russ Kendall, Mike Borland, and Damon Kiesow were elected to the Judiciary Committee, and Kevin Martin was elected to be the Executive Committee board representative for the remainder of the year. After January 1, Martin will make the transition to Regional Officer board representative under the new governance structure.

The budget covers only the next six months because NPPA is now making the switch from their old fiscal year budget to a calendar year plan. Later this year the newly elected officers and board members will plan a complete annual budget for 2010.

Today the board decided how they will go about making the switch from the current board of directors to the newly structured board that they voted in during yesterday's session.

The transition will be made by holding elections in November for both the odd-numbered region chairs and the new six at-large directors. Those six new directors will be elected to staggered terms: the top two vote-getters will serve three-year terms, the next two high vote totals will serve two-year terms, and the next two lower vote totals will serve one-year terms. The Executive Committee elected at today's board meeting will serve for 18 months (except for the treasurer, who will serve 30 months so as to maintain the one-year stagger with the national secretary's term).

After this election, the board's annual meeting will be held in January instead of June, and tentatively at the NPPA offices in Durham, NC, instead of on the road during one of the organization's summer educational events.

Aside from changing the board structure, another big change for NPPA is the switch from planning and passing a fiscal year budget to a budget that is based on the calendar year. Because of this, the board today prepared and passed a budget that's for only six months – through the end of December – and then later in 2009 the newly elected officers and board will create a budget for 2010. One of the advantages of NPPA switching to a calendar year budget is the fact that most of the organization's expensive events are in the early part of each year and the middle of the summer, and having those expenses come in near the end of a fiscal year makes budgetary forecasting a challenge (because it can take several months for all the final expenses to come in and close). In a calendar year budget, the cost of those events – as well as the profits – will come in and close much earlier in the yearly accounting process.

Earlier in todays session Damon Kiesow gave the board a report of the Web Committee's proposed redevelopment of NPPA's Web site – including some navigation and page mock-ups, and a discussion of the different Web and database capabilities needed by the organization. They also discussed the role the Web site will play in NPPA's business functions and electronic commerce.

NPPA's general council Mickey H. Osterreicher reported to the board on NPPA's Advocacy Committee activities during the last year, including the group's visit to Capitol Hill where they met with elected representatives on issues such as the Orphan Works legislation and the proposed federal shield law.

The board Wednesday also created an ad hoc committee that was instructed to look into various ways to help NPPA members maintain their professional memberships if they loose their jobs and are facing difficult financial circumstances.

Regarding NPPA membership, the board modified the definition of a "student" member to be someone who is enrolled in at least 9 credit hours of coursework. Student chapters representative Michael Mullady from San Francisco State University reported to the board several suggestions on how to make NPPA more relevant to visual journalism college students, including adding a suggested student category in NPPA's annual Best Of Photojournalism competition.

The board also talked about a strategic plan that was started last year for NPPA's educational events, and in conjunction with it they heard a report from Women In Photojournalism Conference chairs Pat Holloway and Tahra Makinson-Sanders. The 20th anniversary Women In Photojournalism Conference this year took place today in Las Vegas in conjunction with Convergence '09.

Read how the board of directors voted to restructure the goverance of the organization

 

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