Does Tom Lee travel too much?

Short answer #1:     I don’t know
Short answer #2:     Do we know enough to be able to answer the question?

A kerfluffle erupted in the AFM blogosphere recently over Tom Lee’s travel. It was kicked off by a comment on AFM in Trouble that Florence was telling people that Tom had spent $40,000 in travel over the first six months of 2005.

After some questioning, Ken Shirk chimed in, saying

Not unexpectedly, the president has significantly higher expenses than any other officer. Although the committee would not normally zero in on that, two things surfaced that caught the committee's attention just at this last meeting. The first was that Tom Lee appeared to be booking a large number of flights within a week or less of the departure date, which virtually guarantees a higher fare. The second was observing a pattern of travel on AFM business that routed through DC with multi-day layovers. When we questioned him on these two aspects, Tom defended each occasion of concern with an arguably justifiable reason (although we found ourselves wondering why the AFM needed to be represented by the president at so many various meetings in DC compared to previous administrations).

It was from these two observations that we asked to see what his expense totals were for the year, i.e., 2005-to-date. Tom Lee: $38K; Florence Nelson, ca. $16K; Bobby Herriot, ca. $16K. That was quite an outsized difference, particularly considering that part of Florence's balance included all the rooms for one of the education seminars last spring.

This comment led to other commenters demanding that the AFM change its accounting firm (with the counter-comment that the bylaws made this the President’s call), criticizing Tom for not living in New York, demanding investigations, und so weiter. The debate then shifted to the question of what the IEB could or could not do, with some claiming that the IEB had the authority, according to the bylaws language about the budgeting process, to limit presidential travel and others (me) stating that the most the IEB could do was to require disclosure of travel costs.

Along the way, I have been the target of some snarky comments about my demands for some kind of verification of the rumors floating about, such as

is Tom going to be protected by artificial protocols banning consideration of information from sources not vetted by self-appointed bloggers?

I didn’t know there were any other kind.

One of the lessons I’ve learned by spending the past decade swimming in the shark tank that is the AFM is that information is a political weapon, and like most weapons is crafted very carefully in order to inflict the maximum damage. It is therefore incumbent on anyone actually trying to make a fair judgment to inquire carefully about the “facts” one is given, to seek independent verification of them, and to try to hear the other side – because there’s always an “other side.” It’s also useful to learn how the “fact” was used to inflict damage; that can tell a lot about its reliability.

One question I had when first reading about the $40K figure was why this hadn’t been used during the campaign if it was as bad as it was made to sound. It’s possible that no one saw the possibilities, I guess. But it seems more likely that the issue was much more ambiguous than it probably sounded when Florence whispered it in a campaign suite at the Riviera. Ken Shirk’s explication would appear to bear this out.

Was Tom traveling too much, or spending too much on the travel he did? Unfortunately the Annual Reports during both Tom’s and Florence’s tenure as S/T are far less detailed, at least in terms of breaking down spending, than were the ones done by Steve Sprague. The 1997 annual report gives a figure of $89K for officers’ travel, although that may include IEB meetings as well. Assuming an average inflation rate of 3% per year, that would translate to a figure of around $110K in 2005 terms. How much of that normally goes towards presidential travel is anyone’s guess – at least anyone’s guess who doesn’t work at 1501.

But I suspect this is less about Tom’s travel than it is about Tom. Those who regard him as a disaster have an investment in believing that nothing he does is justified. A good example is the famous trip to Cannes.

A post on AFM in Trouble described this trip as a “self-serving vacation.” ASCAP was a little more charitable in its description. What’s telling, though, is that there were other figures from the AFM world there as well, most notably Dennis Dreith from the Film Special Payments Fund and Hal Espinosa from Local 47. Knowing both Dennis and Hal, I have no doubt whatsoever that their presence there was fully justified. But why was Tom singled out for accusations of junketeering? Absent any evidence that he was off on the beach or whatever one does in Cannes, why should he not be extended the same courtesy of assuming that he was there on a working trip?

Personally I would like to know how much the officers are spending on travel and that it’s being monitored to make sure that the dues money that Local 8 sends them (which amounts to around a third of our gross revenue, by the way) is not wasted. But the operative words are “know” and “make sure.” That means seeing verified figures and hearing complete explanations. If modifications to the bylaws are needed to make this happen, then let’s do them in such a way that doesn’t assume that our officers are crooks.

Comments

[A Believer]

Why doesn't the AFM report the financial numbers the way they were on the spreadheet from 2000? It looked very complete and had so much detailed breakdowns. At least you can see how much everyone spent besides their salaries. Tom Lee really did spend a lot in 2000 compared to everyone else. I think I know more now why so many people have questioned his expenses over the last few years. Will our IEB or new secretary/treasurer try to report more now? I hope they do.

[Steve Young]

I saw the messages you had referred to on AFM in Trouble regarding Tom Lee’s travel expenses for the 1st six months of 2005 being $38,000. I had also heard rumblings of this at the convention from IEB members but saw no campaign material on the subject. Of course, unless the Emeriti Officers scavenged the convention delegates tables, we saw very little campaign material on the dais.

In my opinion, any officer spending $38K in the1st six months of any year is extremely excessive. $38K would be a high amount for a full year. The final tally for the year would be astounding from my past experience. Unfortunately, the job of AFM President does require considerable travel, but not this can be done more economically with prudent planning, carefully watching the budget, and not traveling for just any occasion. Negotiations, crisis situations and “showing the flag” at targeted appropriate functions, but within reason, are appropriate travel reasons. I definitely do not miss the amount of travel I did.

My highest full year of expenses (including cell phone, internet access etc.) at the AFM was in 2000 where my total expenses were $34,000. I was not happy having spent that much – but I am generally known to be cheap when using other people’s money. That same year, Tom Lee as Secretary Treasurer spent $47,000 which was an indicator of things to come.

For the 1st time, the method of reporting the 2000 LM2 was changed and the report that was filed and signed extremely late in 2001 by Tom Lee as both President and former Secretary Treasurer showed a distinct departure from the accountability that had previously existed on the LM2 regarding officers and staff total expenses. I could even figure where they came up with the numbers for 2000.

In early 2002 after seeing the LM2, I contacted several IEB members and gave them a copy of the complete financial accounting that the finance dept. had created for 2000 and a later reply from the AFM said everything was in order – only that the reporting requirements had changed.

I then suggested to a couple of conferences that they adopt a resolution that would go to the Locals Conference Council to ask the IEB to provide an annual breakdown of all expenses so that locals and members could have an accurate accounting of expenses for teach year. Unfortunately for locals, the Finance Committee and members, nothing came of that.

So the bottom line now is the $38K in travel is actually greater when you include cell phone, internet expenses and other incidentals which comprise total expenses. You can view the actual 2000 record from the finance department for all AFM Officers and Staff at my website section by going here: http://home.comcast.net/~syoungafm/events.htm --- and scroll to the bottom of the page.

You can also view the proposed resolution I had created which could still be valid if applied.

Robert, I want to thank you for leaving your AFM Observer site up as you promised me at the convention so I could eventually read most everything here. I never did see the photo of me in shorts that you had placed here at the convention that people told me about.

One other group of messages here that caught my attention were the ones about the situation in St. Louis. I wish I had seen them sooner because I agree with the anonymous message that stated it was the local’s responsibility to file the 8(d) notice – not the attorney’s. I would have posted the same reply.

After looking at the considerable number of messages and replies you’ve created here, one thing is very clear to me. Viola players, especially Principal Viola players have far too much time on their hands. Perhaps you should take up a hobby, like learning to play the French horn.