Why Are We Being Asked to Pay FSBA Dues ($21,766 Yearly) Four Months Before they are Due?

It is a very simple question that will be asked at this Friday morning's special workshop.

My AAA membership runs through July 1st, I pay the renewal at the end of June.

My wife's magazine subscription expires at the end of may, so I pay the renewal in early to mid May?

Who in the heck pays a yearly membership renewal four months early?  Why are we being asked to pay FSBA's exorbitant invoice four months early this year??

I have a sneaking suspicion it is because there is a bill that has already passed overwhelmingly in the House and is on the Special Order Calendar for coming Tuesday in the Senate which would overhaul the way FSBA collects dues statewide.

SB 1426 (HB1155) -- Sponsored in the House by Eric Eisnaugle, Sponsored in the Senate by Kelli Stargel and Co-Sponsored in the Senate by our own Sen. Don Gaetz--will take effect upon becoming law and it will allow individual board members the option to "opt-out" of paying their individual portion of dues to membership organizations such as FSBA.

I have passionately championed the concept of this bill over the last two years in Tallahassee, locally, and statewide because business as usual and the status-quo must be challenged here!  FSBA joined the unions and other special interests recently, suing the state, the Governor and the Legislature challenging duly enacted legislation that benefitted 70,000 poor, primarily minority students.  They were using taxpayer money to fight Tallahassee leadership over OUR TAXPAYER MONEY. It is ridiculous!

Not only this, but FSBA has been unresponsive to conservative ideas put forth by conservative board members like me for a decade---and they charge a literal fortune for dues, collecting more than $1.2 Million in Taxpayer money yearly just for base level dues membership from School Boards around Florida.

Then, to add injury to insult, every other training and professional development conference they offer comes at an additional charge to taxpayers.  Gravy over the top, at your expense, Mr. Taxpayer.

Enough!

Some training (yearly ethics training) is offered for free by other School Board associations in Florida--yet the FSBA continues to charge their MEMBERS $155.00 each to receive their

HB 549 and SB 1114: Bills that Facilitate Freedom of Choice in Advocacy

           


Today is a huge day in the legislature for a bill that will solve many problems for elected constitutional officers, school board members, who want more accountability from their advocacy associations;  more importantly,  school board members that want and deserve more choice in advocacy, particularly when taxpayer subsidized advocacy groups sue the Governor and Legislature in court, will now have this--if some dominoes fall the right way today.

              HB 549 is on the agenda for consideration today in the House, and an amendment will be added from the  floor that reads:

(4)  Membership association dues paid with public funds, as defined in s. 215.85(3), shall be assessed for each elected or appointed public officer. However, if a public officer elects not to join the membership association, the dues assessed for that public officer shall not be paid to the membership association.

HB 549 has a similar, companion bill  (SB 1114)  in the Senate that did not make the special order calendar for this week.  

Because of this, many of us from around the state will be putting on a "full court press" urging

On AM1620 Discussing IFCAA

I was invited on to the AM1620 morning show with Andrew McKay yesterday to discuss IFCAA.  

I was contacted by the station to discuss this proposal after they read the Viewpoint I submitted that appeared in this Sunday's PNJ.

The reception to my proposal was warm, and the discussion went very well.  The podcast of my discussion is here.