Bulletin cost goes up because we expect to have more members. Truncating the Directory issue to cut costs. Other than that, not much change.
Web services-- much happier with our new ISP. Legal is cost for the domains we own. We spread that over several years. We will be upgrading the site and attendant services. Most of the services in this area come from staff effort and not from buying more bells and whistles.
Gifted Youth- big cost is background checks and renewing checks every 5 years. Other big cost is attendance at NAGC convention.
Foundation grants are $1 per member allocated to the Foundation... they use for admin (paying us back for the staff time) so they can say that all donations go to charity, not administration.
Hearings- nothing planned, but we have to have something there just in case.
No elections this year beyond the ombudsman election. Phew. Election years are expensive. (This is personal hot button for me-- 57,000 geniuses and we have to pay someone else $37K to count our ballots because we can't trust ourselves).
Leadership Development: For the first time, ever, over a 12-month period, we have a Leadership event in every single region. Peggy is focusing on smaller one or two-group events more than the big formal weekend regional events. She wants to move many of our resources online--podcasts, videos, power points, etc.
Local Group Funding: Down a bit-- due to decrease in awards and gifts, newsletter exchange, postage (because more officers are taking advantage of electronic stuff). Actual money sent to the Local Groups is still at the same rate.
Testing costs are up because this is a year to buy more Wonderlics (we bought a two-year supply in 2008). The price per piece for the Wonderlic has increased a bit, too. We do negotiate with the company to keep the costs down.
Marketing is down $70k, but mainly because we pulled licensing out and into a separate category. Increasing advertising. Increase in awards and gifts (primarily using what we had to buy, per contract, from the left-overs from the Boutique) because of the 50th Anniversary. Dues & subscriptions down by eliminating some software by using staff to figure out some work-arounds for software we are still keeping.
Licensing-- royalties to authors for the calendars. Legal is contract work for new agreements. Licensing fees is the 2% we have to pay MIL based on our licensing income.
Membership-- OMFG! the credit card and banking fees! Over $92K! Printing and that sort of thing up overall because we'll have more members. We did buy extra membership cards last year, so that cost is down this year.
MIL component still at 5%. yay!
"National Office" would be better called overhead and administration. It includes:
Audit and tax prep. Advertising to hire someone. Fees for banking. Staff awards and gifts for anniversaries. Hardware and software. Archival system. Accounting system support. On-going training and professional development for staff. Salaries and benefits. Outside HR administration (so we get better rates on insurance and other benefits). Insurance on building and equipment. Equipment rental/support (copiers, postal machines, etc). Freight & shipping of mailing bills and other little stuff, shipping of supplies for the AG to the AG site (some years we can drive it to the AG, but this year, Detroit is too far to drive). Insurance operations-- D&O, fire, flood, general liability. Janitorial and cleaning. Various printing and postage. Rent on building ($71K). Repairs and maintenance--copiers cost a lot! Supplies--paperclips, paper, pens, toner, etc. Taxes on value of personal property (gak!). Telephone & Internet. Temp contract labor--sometimes. Travel for staff to go to professional development programs, AMC meetings, AG, etc. Milage for when staff has to run to the bank, run to the airport to pick up AMC members at the airport, etc.
Name & Logo protection-- taking the lawsuit out of the mix, this is the cost of using Cliff and his firm when we need to send a C&D letter, advise us on internal situations, etc. Cliff does give us some free hours.
Special Projects- Litigation: nada. All bills have been paid already.
Events: Big expense but it's netted out as income, so there is nothing listed here.
RVCs: $1800 per RVC. In general RVCs have spent far less than budgeted last year. Woot!
Capital: Server upgrade and maintenance; chairs, shredders, graphic software upgrades, laptop replacement. All basic and reasonable stuff. Can't let the building and equipment slide into disrepair.
First round gives us an excess of operating revenue over expenses as more than $45K. We haven't had a positive number in this line since 2006-07. This is the cash-flow number. There is more accounting massaging we have to do.
Non-operating revenue is paper transactions recording unrealized gains and losses on investments.
Life-member non-cash allocation is adjustment internally for every year older a life member gets--and thus we don't have to keep as much cash in their name . We get to recognize on our accounts a certain amount of their pre-paid dues as income.
Depreciation includes depreciation on capital expenses and vacation not yet taken. Again-- we don't have to spend it, but we have to account for it.
Equity restoration-- what the AMC said we have to pay ourselves back for the lawsuit costs.
Bottom Line: POSITIVE $295.00
(The last positive bottom line was 2006-07)
Readers, please remember, this is a
FIRST DRAFT
2 comments:
I was thinking about other expenses (and finally looking at our hardcopy local newsletter rather than online, which is how I receive it) and wonder what is the difference between having color per page (or, more likely, per sheet) in the Mensa Bulletin, compared to not.
Over the course of 48+ pages (12+ sheets), during the course of 10 issues per year, that could be, potentially, a considerable savings in expenses. (No clue. Any chance we can get an estimate from the printer?) Some color within the Bulletin in certainly nice, helps spruce it up, and makes it that much more interesting, but is it necessary to have color on (nearly) every page? Certainly the sheet that comprises the front and back cover and inside cover, but few other places in the newsletter need it. Given the Fox Imaging ads are all in color, material that's on those sheets can also have color to spruce things up without affecting the estimate much, if at all.
It'd be interesting to have an estimate of how much would be saved by removing most of the color from the Bulletin. A nice easy cost savings without impacting any services for the membership whatsoever.
We switched to full-color Bulletins a couple years ago because the printer gave us such a deal that it cost essentially nothing extra for color than for B&W. So alas, no savings to be found by decreasing Bulletin color.
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