WASFAA Bylaws Proposal

Existing Bylaws

Proposed Bylaws
 

In early 2023 the WASFAA Executive Council appointed a task force to examine several aspects of the WASFAA operational structure. The task force was charged with examining WASFAA's membership year, fiscal year and volunteer service year. In November 2023 the Task Force made several recommendations to the Executive Council (EC). EC agreed that these changes would be beneficial, and moved to put the following changes before our membership.

  1. Change the WASFAA volunteer service year to start July 1 and end June 30
  2. Change the WASFAA fiscal year to start July 1 and end June 30
  3. Change the WASFAA membership year to start July 1 and end June 30
These items are set in our Bylaws, and these changes will require amendments to the Bylaws. WASFAA’s Bylaws may be amended only by a two-thirds (2/3) majority affirmative vote of the active Association members voting. An official ballot will be emailed thirty days after this notice.

Justification

The WASFAA volunteer service year currently runs from May 1 to April 30. Moving the volunteer service year to run from July to June better aligns the service year with WASFAA’s major events-- Conference and Sister Dale Brown Summer Institute.

WASFAA currently operates on a calendar based fiscal year. The current fiscal and volunteer service years do not align. This means WASFAA Committee Chairs inherit a budget created by their predecessor. Often this results in multiple budget adjustments, and general confusion on the part of both incoming and outgoing chairs. Also, it means that the income and expenses for major events generally do not fall within the same fiscal year/budget cycle. Conference hotel deposits, for example, may be made in November while the income from the event does not materialize until February or March. Moving the start of the fiscal year to July accomplishes two goals:
 
  1. Allows incoming Committee Chairs to establish a budget for their own service year.
  2. Allows the income and expenses major events to mostly fall within a single fiscal year.
WASFAA’s membership year currently runs May 1 to April 30. Moving the membership year to July to June standardizes the WASFAA calendar. It also removes confusion about who is a member during which year when it comes time to register for Conference.

Proposed Changes

A summary of the proposed changes follows:
 
  • Article IV, Section 4: Change to reflect practice.
  • Article IV, Section 6: Change dates to reflect proposal
  • Article V, Section 3: Remove reference to IDEEA Representative-at-Large being chair of IDEEA committee, which is covered elsewhere. Change nomination language to align with current practices
  • Article VI, Section 2: Remove reference to “mail.” Change dates to reflect proposal
  • Article VI, Section 3: Grammar fix
  • Article VII, Section 2: Remove reference to “mail”
  • Article VII, Section 3: Changes to reflect difficulty of finding nominees. Changes to reflect current practice
  • Article VII, Section 5: Remove reference to “mail.”
  • Article VIII: Swap positions of Sections 1 and 2 to better reflect the progression from President-elect to President.
  • Article VIII, Section 2: Remove reference to NASFAA board as this conflicts with current NASFAA practice and Section 3.
  • Article VIII, Section 5: Remove reference to “mail.”
  • Article VIII, Section 6: Remove membership language. This task is being handled by the Membership and Electronic Services committees.
  • Article IX, Section 1: Replace “California” with “WASFAA region”
  • Article IX, Section 2, b: Remove reference to “telegraph,” add option of email. Grammar fix.
  • Article IX, Section 3, b: Several updates to account for modern technology. Remove reference to “telegram.”
  • Article X, Section 1: Update to account for modern technology
  • Article XIII, Section 1: Add the option for electronic archival of WASFAA historical documents. Grammar fix.
  • Article XIV: Change dates to reflect proposal
  • Article XVI: Grammar fix
  • Article XX: remove reference to “mail.”
  • Throughout: Capitalize Representative(s)-at-Large for consistency
Questions regarding these proposed changes may be sent to bylaws@wasfaa.org