California Employer Advisory Council

President’s Letter

 

October 19, 2012

Dear CEAC Family,

The 2013 CEAC Conference will be held at the DoubleTree Hotel Ontario Airport on May 9 and 10, 2013, in Ontario, California. Mark your calendars and plan to attend the conference - you won't want to miss this! More details will be forthcoming.

September was a blur filled with activities and, as promised, I want to keep you abreast of the changes and situations we are facing as an organization via this monthly letter.

CEAC Board Position Appointments

Parliamentarian - Alison Berquist, Esq., a family law attorney for 10 years. She is familiar with the challenges of employers because she was a small business owner involving a product she invented and patented. She enjoys helping others and currently serves as a board member of WomenSage, a non-profit organization.

Member-at-Large - Stewart Lerner is the founder and CEO of Lerner and Associates, an Orange County training and consulting firm. His prior career spanned 30 years with the EDD as a district administrator responsible for all the field offices in Orange County. He has been involved with the Orange County EAC since its early beginnings. If his name sounds familiar to you, Stu is the back-up consultant for the Management Hotline when Bruce Matlock is on vacation.

Member-at-Large - Jim Simons is educated in system design, program management, project management, and process re-engineering in telecommunication, customer service, and billing systems. He designed and implemented the first systems for Verizon and Nextel. He also implemented the "Phone Print" solution to prevent fraud by cloned phones and prepay phone systems. Jim will be helping the CEAC utilize social media and technology to their fullest potential as marketing and communications tools.
Region III Regional Vice President (RVP) - Bill Padgett is the owner of Candy Box and Gift. As a former EDD/EAC coordinator, EAC vice president, and EAC president for Yuba, Sutter, Colusa EAC, Bill has a long history working with the EDD and the EAC. Bill is currently serving as the past president of Yuba Sutter, Colusa EAC and understands the roles and responsibilities of an RVP from an EDD, EAC, and employer point of view.

Region II RVP - the position is still vacant.

The hope was to keep these letters to one page for quick reading and informational updates, but it wouldn't be right to just give you the good news.

Due to the cancelation of the 2012 CEAC Conference a business meeting was not held and it is necessary according to our bylaws. The financial information is now available and I want to share it with you along with some challenges the CEAC is facing. We will coordinate an online business meeting in early November to share full details with you.
I promised to be honest about sharing with you missteps we have taken. We cannot change the past, but we have today and today we can chose to learn from the past. We can use today to correct some decisions or practices of the past and plan for a better tomorrow. I am one hundred percent committed to doing that, but an organization needs accurate financial and membership data to make educated decisions.

Membership Dues

In 2008 the CEAC changed the membership fee structure. Originally, membership dues were based on the number of members for each EAC. This was changed to a fee structure based on EAC income as stated in each EAC tax return. To date, 17 EACs have not paid their dues for fiscal year 2012 -2013.

Membership dues are used to cover the vendor costs for providing the benefits of the Management Hotline, the CEAC/EAC website, and current year EAC income tax filing fees. At best, the dues are covering the annual vendor fees. This year the conference was cancelled in part because the CEAC did not have adequate funds. Our financial situation has not improved and the CEAC has a contractual obligation to hold the 2013 CEAC Conference at the DoubleTree in Ontario, California next year.

Okay, that is the situation and those are the facts. So what is the solution? A few things have already been implemented. The CEAC board of directors will not be reimbursed as in the past for travel expenses incurred. ALL expenses must be pre-authorized with strong justification for any amount of money requested for reimbursement. Leading by example, we will use WebEx and teleconferencing for board meetings, eliminating two face-to-face meetings and the costs associated with them. Our goal is to keep expenses down across the board.

What are we asking the EACs to do?

• Pay your membership dues if you haven't already
• Provide your income tax information for tax preparation purposes
• Send your EAC treasurer contact information to CEAC Financial Advisor Lynne McGinnis at .
• Fill out the attached Quarterly Report Form and forward it to your RVP by October 31.

Lastly, we are looking for EACs to step forward and provide sponsorships for the upcoming conference as you have done in the past. We are looking for full support from each EAC to attend the conference as we are preparing specific training for EAC chairs, EAC treasurers, and EAC/EDD coordinators. The hope is to help you be better equipped as EAC Board members and to learn from you your best practices as EAC leaders.

We are also going to actively seek corporate sponsors for the 2013 conference. Our goal is to hold a top quality conference for employers and invaluable training for our EAC boards using resources from within the organization. We hope to keep the cost affordable to conference attendees yet provide a wealth of information. Plus, we'll throw in some fun - after all it's a family reunion!

We'll be working out the logistics of having a business meeting via conference call or WebEx and get the information out to you on October 31.
I'm confident we'll get through this and we will be better for having handled it in a positive manner as a team. We are continuing to learn from our missteps with the goal of building a stronger and healthier organization. With the dedication and commitment of everyone on Team CEAC we have what it takes to endure and thrive.

Thank you for all you do at the local level to make us a statewide volunteer organization with heart and commitment to the employers and our communities. Get ready for a celebration in May 2013. Save the date, May 9 and 10, 2013, for the conference.
It is going to be a great time of listening, learning and leading!

Warm regards to each of you,

 

Hope Sandoval Downey
CEAC President