December 2015 NLTAPA President's Message

The votes are in, and we have the unofficial results for the 2017 dues increase motion presented at the 2015 summer meeting: 51 centers submitted ballots, with 44 voting “yes” for a dues increase and 7 “no” votes. 33 centers voted for a $250 increase, and 18 voted for a $125 increase. The official, audited results will be presented at the winter business meeting, but we don’t expect that Florida’s vote will be a game changer in this election. Thank you for your participation!

The very high response rate is very good news. I believe these results tell us that most of you are very supportive of NLTAPA and its activities, and even if you do not support a dues increase, you are still engaged with the national program and know what we are doing. The NLTAPA EC members and our partners try very hard to meet our members’ needs, and we have grown significantly over the last few years, apparently with great success. These results reconfirm that the Association is stronger and the work groups are making significant contributions to daily operations at many centers.

In spite of the very supportive response, there are still a significant number of centers who either did not respond or were against a dues increase. To those of you who did not vote or did not support a dues increase, the NLTAPA EC can guess why you might not support our activities, but we would rather hear from you directly and know how to improve. Please let us know what will help you find value in the national program, and better yet, please participate in national initiatives and help make NLTAPA exactly what you want it to be. If you can’t make it to the national meetings, you can always send me or the NLTAPA secretary an email, give us a call, or post something to the forums. While I don’t expect that 100% of our members will always be 100% behind us, I think that we can get a lot closer to full support with your input and help.

In the next few weeks, NLTAPA work groups are developing work plans and budgets for 2016. Although the dues increase comes into effect for 2017, we expect to be able to sustain our current level of activities by using unexpended funds from previous years and possibly recalibrating our reserves to account for increased future income. At the fall EC meeting, we agreed to examine our entire budget and reserve policies and make corrections and changes that keep us fiscally responsible and transparent while looking for opportunities to grow Association activities. If you have ideas or requests of any work group, now is the time to have your concerns considered for 2016.

I hope to see many of you in January at the winter business meeting, but please don’t hesitate to contact me before then with suggestions to make NLTAPA even better. Your ideas for winter meeting agenda items are also welcome.

John