Dues Update

Hi all,

As the annual meeting approaches, you and your colleagues may have some as yet unanswered questions about the dues proposal. I realize that Cary has recently (5/5/10) sent out an explanation of the dues reform in an email member newsletter. However, we want to be sure that folks are clear about the situation.So we are happy to entertain whatever questions you might have. Please send those questions directly to me.

For now, let me simply emphasize, as did Cary in his 5/5/10 member newsletter, that the dues proposal addresses dues for advocacy members only. It does not change dues for cb members/units. The national leadership felt that in this worst of economic moments for higher education in many decades. it made sense to take off the agenda any idea of identifying some average, per caps, or other method of assessing dues which might reduce the dues of some chapters but slightly increase those of others.

The dues proposal would implement progressive salary bands for advocacy members and chapters
that would make the AAUP more affordable and attractive for lower paid faculty members and professionals. Those salary bands were specified in the newsletter and are designed to at one and the same time increase our ability to increase advocacy membership in lower paid institutions and fields, and not to raise the higher dues much beyond the existing
national dues plus conference dues that so many of our members pay (those dues figures will be indexed, as our dues always have been by averaging the average salary increase for continuing faculty (1.8%) with the consumer price index from 12/08-12/09 (2.7%) for a total of 2.3%.

For state conferences, keep in mind that the dues proposal builds into the progressive salary bands the current state conference dues that pass through the national office, eliminating the burdensome mutual calculations and process that surround current disbursements, enabling the more efficient allocation of monies to state conferences. And the state conferences would get the amounts they have received from the national office for the next two years, giving the ASC Executive committee and the association’s leadership time to develop procedures to update payments to conferences based on their membership gains/declines.

Whatever monies currently go directly from chapters to state conferences, as is the case with many cb chapters, would continue as is, untouched by the national office. The proposal only addresses dues monies that currently pass through the national office.
States will continue to be free to collect extra dues from their members if they wish.

There are a handful of states in which some cb chapters send state conference dues to the national office to be disbursed to the conferences.
(Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania are the three major examples, although very small amounts of cb monies for state conferences pass through the national office—e.g., in Ohio and New York, around 16K, and in Pennsylvania around 7K—in three other states, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Iowa the amounts are less than 3K, and in Tennessee and Connecticut the amount is less than $400). We would encourage those chapters in those states to send their state conference dues directly to the state conference; we will of course be happy to clarify what those amounts have been in 2010 as well as to clarify the basis of those calculations. The number of chapters and amounts of money are so small that this should be a very manageable process.

If you have ANY questions about the proposed reforms, I would encourage you to contact us, so that we can address those prior to the meeting. We have had a few such questions already. And in some cases they are the sort of question that is more easily handled one on one than in a large council meeting or plenary session.

A final point on the dues process for cb chapters.
With the implementation of our new software system at the end of this calendar year, we anticipate being able to more efficiently handle the invoicing and payment of those dues, with a system that would enable chapters and the national office to share a common member database that would reduce reconciliation issues.

Cheers,
Gary

Gary Rhoades, General Secretary, AAUP