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this page An Update from the APGO Treasurer Our 2005 year to date revenue and expenditures look to be in good shape in that we are a little above projections on the revenue side and below projections on the expenditure side, with respect to the 2005 budget at this point in the year. I anticipate that we should end the year with a modest surplus, as had been planned. Having said that, however, we must remember that the last few months of the year are when we bring in the least revenue, while our regular expenditures continue as normal; and, of course, we never know when an expensive complaint or discipline case may arise. As you may recall from the audited financial reports from the last few years, 2003 was our first surplus year ($17,804) and 2004 was our second ($27,905). These surplus funds have been put aside and placed in APGO’s Contingency Reserve Fund which now stands at $45,709. The Contingency Reserve Fund was instigated by Council in 2004 with the set goal of putting aside an operating reserve of $250,000 as contingency and to achieve that amount over the following 5 years, i.e., by year end 2009. This targeted amount represents 6 months operating expenses for the Association and is consistent with reserve positions of other non-profit self-regulating professional associations. The importance of APGO having a Contingency Reserve Fund is directly related to the need to develop APGO’s capacity to deal with one or more costly complaint investigations or discipline hearings. It is therefore important that we achieve surpluses in each of the next few years, and we believe that we can achieve those surpluses by holding annual dues at $400 and by continuing efforts to reduce operating costs. You should be aware that the APGO office is continually looking for and achieving cost efficiencies, and two good recent examples are external funding for the APGO’s youth intern in 2004-2005 and the move to an electronic members newsletter which completely eliminated both printing and distribution costs. I would also like to point out that the APGO has been able to incorporate a number of new features of membership without passing on the cost to members through increased fees. Starting in 2005, all APGO members were included in the national Secondary Professional Practice Liability Insurance coverage at a cost to the Association of $8.76 per member. And, starting in 2006, the APGO will be contributing an increased assessment of $26.75 per member to CCPG (the Canadian Council of Professional Geoscientists), a substantial increase over the existing assessment of $11.05 per member. The increased contribution to CCPG by APGO will also be achieved without the need for a dues increase. Additional funding to CCPG will allow it to hire - for the first time- a professional geoscientist staff officer to kick-start valuable work required on national issues affecting professional geoscience, such as: national standards for registration, a shared set of professional practice guidelines, inter-provincial mobility and international recognition of Canadian geoscientists. APGO believes that these are important goals for the national body and supports the increase in funding to CCPG. I hope this outline demonstrates that we are making wise use of the dues you pay each year in administering the Act on your behalf. |
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