ICA Governing Council Meeting Minutes
July 11, 2009
Attendees: Renee Bauer, Marie Bracki, Ellen Brown, Lauri Dishman, Jennifer Froemel, Louisa Gratsis, Susan Hanson, Ronna Heinig, Maricruz Ramos, Sara Schwarzbaum, Jessica Specht, Kathy Wereszczynska, Elijah Itah, Nadia Maick,Michele Kerulis, Dan Stasi, Ray Piagentini, Katherine Howard, Nanci Grandone, Tiffany Marsh, Mildred Holmes, Jessica Dyrek, Rose Fuller, Katie Miley, Evelyn Zuroske, John D’Anca, Judy Fawell, Venisa Beasley-Green, Rosemary Cairo, Pamela Arnold, Carolyn Khan, Larry Rawlins, Annette Lonie, Christina Nolan, Kevin Stouffer, Danier Piedrahita, Ellie Sivill, Lynn Turovetz, Patricia McGinn, Scott Wickman, Jeff Edwards, Yonah Klem
The meeting was called to order at 10AM by President McGinn. Roll call was held and a quorum was in attendance.
Consent Agenda:
A motion was made by Pam Arnold and seconded by Carolyn Khan to accept the consent agenda.
Motion passed unanimously.
Treasurer’s Report:
Ronna Heinig (ICA ED) presented the treasurer’s report because Treasurer Deb Pender was unable to attend the meeting. Between increased membership and profit from last year’s conference, ICA finished the year with a $31,889.87 profit.
A motion to accept the treasurer’s report was made by Marie Bracki and was seconded by Carolyn Khan. The treasurer’s report will be filed for audit.
The proposed budget for 2009-2010 was presented. It did not include a further increase in membership income and kept the rest of expenses about the same as last year. There will be a decrease in the line item for the ICA Journal because there will be a switch to posting it on line after the next issue. Audit expenses will be increased because the line item now includes reports for the 11 divisions that are currently operating under the ICA tax number.
A motion to accept the budget for 2009-2010 as presented was made by Jessica Dyrek and was seconded by Evelyn Zuroske.
The motion passed unanimously.
Executive Director’s Report:
Ronna is looking for a site in the area for the 2010 site for the ICA conference.
She has implemented an on-line meeting function which is available to chapters, divisions, and regional reps who might like to have a meeting on the phone. Anyone interested needs to contact Ronna to get things set up.
Ronna passed out an Illinois map which showed the numbers for ICA membership by regions. Not surprising, the vast majority of members live in Chicago and suburbs.
Membership for this past year increased by 23% to about 2500 members because of extra mailings and the ease of using the web site. Professional membership increased by 14% and retirees membership increased by 12%.
Publications Committee Report:
Yonah Klem is chairing this committee. She reported that the ICA Journal will be posted online after the most recent issue has gone out. ICA will publicize the change and will be able to accommodate those who still want a hard copy of the Journal sent to them.
The committee is trying to be more aggressive in securing articles for the Journal. They would like to see more peer-reviewed articles and more articles of a general nature to increase readership of the Journal. They will try to do this for the spring issue. The committee would like to have 2 editors, 1) for peer reviews and 2) for general articles. There will be a workshop on how to write for the Journal at the fall conference.
CICO Report:
Dan Stasi reported that CICO will repeat the meeting with college educators again in the fall.
A school counselor confidentiality law has passed and is awaiting the governor’s signature. CICO was able to overcome past opposition to the law.
A scholarship program for graduate students will be funded from excess licensure funds. The recipient can repay the scholarship by working in an underserved area for one year for each year of the scholarship. This is also awaiting the governor’s signature to go into effect.
Marriage and Family Therapists are waiting for the governor to sign the law that will allow them to hold Type 73 certificates. CICO will ask him to veto the law; if he signs, CICO will provide input for the writing of rules to make sure MFTs are required to have the same preparation as counselors to work in the schools.
Provisions that would include counselors as Medicare providers are included in the health reform laws being worked on in Washington.
The State Budget crisis has impacted many counselors and clients in Illinois. The legislators are expected to do something to enact a budget next week when they return to Springfield.
CapWiz can be used to contact state legislators in order to give them feedback about the budget situation.
Old Business:
The 2009 ICA conference will be held in Springfield on November 12-14. The Leadership Academy will be held on November 11 and 12 before the conference begins. ICA has received 99 proposals for presentations and 8 proposals for preconference workshops. There are only 60 slots open for presentations.
ICDA will hold a job search skills forum at the conference. They plan to have open counseling for individuals (15 minute time slots) and plan to produce a job search workbook.
The Southern Illinois Conference (to be held around March, 2011 in Collinsville) will focus on needs of members in the southern part of the state.
The Leadership Development Academy has finalized a list of attendees. The presenters are working on the final content of sessions. A T-shirt has been designed for attendees to wear.
An ICA banner will be purchased by the conference in November.
The Illinois Counselor magazine that was eagerly anticipated may now be in jeopardy because the company (Naylor) has not been able to secure enough advertising to cover the printing and mailing costs as of this date. Ronna will have more info by 7-24-09. If it becomes necessary to change the budget to accommodate ICA printing the next issue of the Contact, a motion will be made on line to governing council members.
Executive Director’s contract: The personnel committee met to evaluate the executive director’s performance this year and recommended she receive a performance bonus of $3000 plus a 3.5% increase in her salary and office expenses.
New Business:
A motion to separate the membership supplies and postage expenses from the ED compensation and to make it a separate line item for membership expenses was made by Katherine M. Howard and seconded by Yonah Klem.
A line item of $6,000.00 was added to the budget with the aforementioned budget vote.
Motion was withdrawn as the budget issue had been resolved in the budget vote.
An organization called “A Home Within” is asking for volunteer counselors to provide pro bono treatment for foster children. Carolyn Khan will investigate the issue and report to the Governing Council at the next meeting.
Money in the checking account is earning less than 1% and our CDs earn 2%. Ronna asked permission to purchase new CDs in $5000 blocks from the extra money from this year’s budget. She would purchase them over the next year and look for the best CD rate.
A motion was made by Christina K. Nolan and seconded by Carolyn Kahn to authorize the executive director to purchase CDs with excess funds from this past year’s budget.
Motion to purchase CD’s was passed unanimously.
Announcements:
Yonah Klem asked for nominees for all division/chapter/ICA awards. A list of awards will be in the Contact. The deadline is September 30th.
Carolyn Kahn received an award from AMHCA for starting a new agency to serve victims of domestic violence in DuPage County.
Larry Rawlins, representing the ICA Foundation, reminded GC members that both donations to the Foundation and applications for grants from the Foundation will be happily received by ICA members. The deadline for applications is the end of September.
Representatives met in appropriate groups to elect representatives to the Executive Committee.
Division Representative is Katie Miley.
Chapter Representative is Jessica Specht.
Regional Representative is Katherine Howard.
President Patricia McGinn turned over the gavel to incoming president, Jeff Edwards. Meeting was adjourned at 11:30AM.
Respectfully submitted by
Lynn Turovetz
ICA Secretary