I hope you all noticed that I didn't write about Recommendation #1 in my last post; thinking that the first beat of any bar is "2" would be a handicap in this business.
Recommendation #1 is the result of an unexpected success I had at the 2007 Convention, when a resolution I put forward resonated (to my surprise) with Joint Law and Finance (JLF). I had been frustrated with the continuing failure of the IEB to exercise any leadership on the AFM's financial state, and thought that one way of changing that would be to require the IEB to purt forward a financial package that had to be considered by the delegates before any alternative package put together by JLF could be brought up. I expected opposition from them, as it would take away some of their power and influence. But, to my surprise, it turned out that they were equally frustrated by the IEB's failures in this area. So my resolution (with some judicious changes made by JLF) became law.
This year's Recommendation #1, while I think it has no chance of passage without considerable reworking, is a substantive attempt by the IEB to address the issue of not having enough money. It does three things:
it raises Federation Per Capita dues (which is what Locals pay to the AFM for each member) by $12 across the board, which is an increase of 22% for regular members and 25% for other categories, and prevents Locals from absorbing more than $2 of that increase;
it raises all categories of Federation work dues, except symphonic work dues, by 0.25%;
it significantly increases the amount of electronic media work subject to the 15% Federation new use dues; and
it changes the current 3-year Convention/election cycle to 4 years.
The proposal that most delegates will find most problematic is the per cap increase. The reason may not be obvious to those who haven't dealt with Local finances, so a short explanation is in order.
It is axiomatic amongst Local officers that raising membership dues costs Locals members. That's why Locals are so tempted to absorb any per cap increases without increasing membership dues: the harm that does to Local finances is why the proposal bars them from doing so.
Say the AFM loses 5% of its membership by this increase. With a 22% in per cap, 1501 still comes out way ahead over the short term. But if my Local (which currently nets about $45 from its life member dues and $130 from its regular member dues after sending 1501 the per cap) loses 5% of its members, we've lost between 15 and 20 members, for a likely loss in net income of between $1,000 and $2,500 or so. And, given that local dues would already be going up by at least $10 across the board, our ability to further increase local dues to compensate would be severely hampered.
So per cap increases are very unattractive to Locals of all sizes; large ones are pure poison. It does, hoever, suggest the kind of increase in dues income that 1501 believes is necessary; it would, on its own, generate between $800,000 and $1 million a year. I suspect the increase in work dues would generate another $500,000 or so, although it's very hard to estimate without the kind of detailed breakdown of work dues income that the AFM has not provided in its Annual Report for many years.
The work dues increases are likely to be less problematic. Although I'm told that RMA was not asked to sign off on the EM dues increases, they have reason to be very happy with how Ray and Co. have run the AFM the past three years, so any opposition on their part likely will be low-key. I suspect the same goes for the touring folks. The broadening of the EM new use net is likely to be the hot spot on this issue, as that subjects some lucrative work to new, and very high, dues.
Lastly, going to a 4-year cycle will not be popular, nor will it generate savings that really justify the controversy it will cost. This was either a negotiating position by the IEB or a genuine belief on their part that a 4-year cycle is better in terms of allowing those who win elections actually get stuff done before they have to start worrying about re-election.
For my part, I'm inclined to oppose a 4-year cycle. I have a lot of faith in this current IEB, but letting them go for 4 years without effective review seems like a stretch, especially as the 3-year cycle is still new and relatively untested. Letting the last President and IEB, which had 3 years and did a lot of damage during that time, have an additional year would have been very bad indeed for the AFM. I can't see this having much chance of passage.
Did you notice something missing in this proposal? I sure did. The AFM's annual report has, since the unfortunate departure of Secretary-Treasurer Steve Sprague, been quite opaque on how the AFM's work dues income (which in 2012 was around $4.7 million; considerably more than the income from the per cap) is sourced. But my guess is that symphonic work dues are at least $2 million of that. Given that comes from a Federation rate of 0.55%, it's easy to see how a small increase in what symphonic musicians pay could produce a very large increase in the AFM's cut. Most symphonic musicians currently pay 2% or higher, and an increase of 0.25% (which would generate something like an additional $1 million to 1501) would not cause hardship too most symphonic musicians - who, after all, have more steady work than many who pay non-symphonic work dues.
So why didn't the IEB follow the example of Willie Sutton and go where the money was? I can think of two reasons. The first is that they didn't want to tangle with ICSOM and the two other symphonic conferences, especially if the relationship between 1501 and the conferences is not as good as apparently it is with RMA. The second is that they are counting on Recommendation #1 to fail and expect JLF to make up the difference between a per cap increase the delegates will vote for and what 1501 needs by increasing symphonic work dues - thus leaving the IEB with clean hands.
I expect that some dues increase will pass. The IEB seems to have done a good job running the AFM in the black for the past three years. But they've done so by cutting back in many areas. The AFM currently gives the impression of having enough fuel in the line to run at idle, but none to actually move forward. If the delegates believe that to be the case, and trust the IEB to use the new money wisely, voting on a dues increase is really the only responsible course.
But it'll be a long discussion, both on the floor and in the corridors, and it wouldn't surprise me if the final vote wasn't until Thursday.
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