Category: Financial Advisory Committee

Financial Advisory Committee – December 2019 Report


The group met 1 time this quarter.

Recent Activities

First Activity
The Financial Advisory Committee met online as a group on October 23. The committee reviewed the LITA budget information from the previous and current fiscal years, discussed budget shortfalls and projections and developed a general assessment of the association's fiscal health, which chairperson Michael Rodriguez delivered as an oral report to the Board of Directors on October 24. We agreed to meet next in January 2020, or whenever the preliminary FY21 LITA budget is distributed to the FAC.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Organizational Stability and Sustainability

What will your group be working on for the next three months?
The Financial Advisory Committee will hold its second meeting in winter 2020 to review the current year's LITA budget and discuss the next fiscal year's budget, once information is distributed to us.

Submitted by Michael Rodriguez on 12/29/2019

Financial Advisory Committee – May 2019 Report


The group met 1 time this quarter.

Recent Activities

First Activity
FAC had an online discussion about Jenny's proposal to create a new member volunteer position. This eLearning Coordinator position "would handle all of the logistics from scheduling to synchronous support to handling evaluation surveys." This alternative to outsourcing the logistics for our webinars and courses could have a positive impact on the LITA budget. The FAC agreed that this was a good idea.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Education and Professional Development, Member Engagement, Organizational Stability and Sustainability

Second Activity
As requested by the LITA Bylaws & Organization Committee, FAC had an online discussion regarding the current FAC bylaws and whether or not the FAC is still needed. Suggestions included making the chair a 2 or 3 year appointment (because of the learning curve) and becoming more proactive on financial issues.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Organizational Stability and Sustainability

What will your group be working on for the next three months?
We will continue to support the Board in any way that is requested. We may need to revisit the merger and the virtual forum at some point.

Submitted by Brian Rennick on 05/31/2019

Financial Advisory Committee – February 2019 Report


The group met 1 time this quarter.

Recent Activities

First Activity
FAC met on March 7 to review the preliminary budget and identified an error that was soon corrected. The expected deficit for 2020 now stands at $46,599. The committee investigated pricing models for a potential virtual forum. We stopped investigating after the planning committee decided not to pursue a virtual conference at this time. Here is what we found before we stopped.

-It's possible to increase the Zoom license for 1 month for $1000 to increase attendance or have simultaneous tracks. Zoom also has automatic audio transcript recording.
-Accessibility considerations will take additional time.
-To do a decent and professional job it will be necessary to contract it out.

Questions from Amigos: How long will the virtual conference run? Is LITA thinking this would be a one day conference? Two day? More? Less?
How many concurrent sessions would you ideally like to have?
Would there be a single opening and/or closing keynote?
Is LITA expecting attendees to have access to the conference sessions recordings and if so, for how long after the conference?
Would LITA expect Amigos to serve as session hosts/moderators and provide technical support to attendees before, during, and after the conference?

One limitation the Amigos system has: "Big Blue Button does not support video or audio playback so the presenter would be unable to play a video or audio clip during their presentation."
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Education and Professional Development, Member Engagement, Organizational Stability and Sustainability

What will your group be working on for the next three months?
We will continue to support the Board in any way that is requested. We may need to revisit the merger and the virtual forum at some point.

Submitted by Brian Rennick on 03/29/2019

Financial Advisory Committee – December 2018 Report


The group met 1 time this quarter.

Recent Activities

First Activity
We reviewed the recommendations from the Financial Working Group regarding the possible combination of ALCTS/LITA/LLAMA.

Jenny mentioned the merger could increase out capacity to better serve our LITA community. The merger could help the members of the three divisions come together the way we do in our libraries.
It was noted by a couple of committee members that they would like to see the in-person conference for the new division be held in a different year than PLA.

Jenny explained the basics of how budgeting for LITA works including revenue, expenses, the endowment, and overhead paid to ALA. Webinars and courses are a revenue stream that can make a significant difference.

We decided to meet on an as-needed basis instead of planning meetings far in advance. We need to meet early in January to review the draft budget before ALA Midwinter. We will meet during the All Committees Meeting at Midwinter. We will need to meet again in late February or early March to review the budget before it goes to the ALA Budget Analysis & Review Committee (BARC).
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Organizational Stability and Sustainability

Second Activity
We voted on a proposal for outsourcing webinar and course logistics to eLearning Solutions.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Education and Professional Development

What will your group be working on for the next three months?
The draft budget will be available mid-February for our review. The Board will probably hold a virtual meeting in March, so FAC will have time to review and discuss it before it is submitted to the Board.

Submitted by Brian Rennick on 01/14/2019

Financial Advisory Committee – September 2018 Report


The group met 2-3 times this quarter.

Recent Activities

First Activity
LITA FAC met during ALA Annual to discuss the potential merger with LLAMA and ALCTS. We became acquainted with ITAL costs and how the journal operation is different from the journals produced by LLAMA and ALCTS. We also agreed that two price levels of advertising would work for the LITA job board. We proposed scheduling a regular meeting time but later decided it would be better to meet whenever financial documents were ready for review.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Organizational Stability and Sustainability

Second Activity
Margaret Heller and Brian Rennick represented LITA FAC on the Joint Finance Group which produced several documents in support of the merger.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Organizational Stability and Sustainability

What will your group be working on for the next three months?
We will meet early in January to review the draft budget before ALA Midwinter. We will meet during the All Committees Meeting at Midwinter. We will need to meet again in late February or early March to review the budget before it goes to the ALA Budget Analysis & Review Committee (BARC).

Submitted by Brian Rennick on 11/07/2018