WSPA Board of Trustees Meeting

WSPA Board of Trustees Meeting

January 23rd, 2016

Boulevard Park Library

12015 Roseberg Ave. S.

Seattle 98168

Present: Bill Thorbecke, President; Russ Hanford, Treasurer; Marvin “Marvo” Reguindin, Executive Director; Joanna Patten, Secretary; Lucy Homans, Director of Professional Affairs (DPA) & Legislative Consultant; Sonia Venkatraman; Andrea Pascarelli; and Michael Badger.

Meeting was called to order at 11:14 p.m.

1. Introductions: Board members, executive director, and director of professional affairs introduced themselves and provided overviews of their professional backgrounds.

Lucy asked that a few items be added to the agendas related to the State Leadership Conference and a discussion about communication about Board affairs.

Sonia asked that her email be changed for WSPA communication.

2. Bylaws, roles, and brief history:Bill discussed the history of WSPA and the governing body. The Association was previously governed by a large council with an Executive Director (ED) who was also a psychologist. The large Board transitioned into a smaller Board, with an employed ED. During that process, bylaws were re-written and a newly conceived Board was created. Bill encouraged the Board members to read the bylaws, which are posted on the WSPA portal. Bill reviewed elected positions within the Board and provided a brief summary of smaller projects that Board members have accomplished in the last few years. He also described the role of the ED and the other personnel that WSPA employs, including the Director of Professional Affairs (DPA), and the book keeper (not employed by the ED’s consulting firm). Bill discussed that the Board and the DPA are responsible for providing oversight and guiding the overall direction of the Association.

One significant issue that was revealed during the transition from the larger Board to the smaller Board was that the accounting practices were unsatisfactory (e.g., It was discovered that WSPA owed many thousands of dollars in back taxes and unpaid bills) and financial planning had not been based on accurate revenue calculations. Due to the Association’s revenue loss over the last several years (e.g., last year WSPA lost $25,000) and the dire state of the Association’s financial reserve, the current Board has focused significantly on righting the financial future of the Association. Last year, the Director of Professional Affairs position was changed from a full time position to a half-time position, and the Board hired an Executive Director and Lobbyist at half-time. Bill reviewed that WSPA’s largest expense remains staff and contractor salaries. He also reported that Conventions, which had originally been budgeted as revenue generating in fact resulting in unintended revenue loss.

An additional issue that was revealed following the transition from the larger Board to the smaller Board was that the membership records were inconsistent and poorly maintained and the WSPA office was in disarray. Although Marvo’s first task following his hire was to put on the Fall Convention, his next major task is to complete a membership inventory and create a new member campaign and a membership retention campaign. Bill urged the Board to prioritize these tasks when considering how Marvo will allocate his time.

Bill proposed that WSPA considera new template for decision-making: relevancy, membership, revenue generation, andvolunteer promotion.

3. Orientation of Organization

Executive Director: Marvo described his background with organization management. His consulting firm, Thinking Cap, employs six people. His administrative assistant, Sierra Venderhood, is instrumental in facilitating daily tasks related to Marvo’s responsibilities as ED. Marvo also has a copywriter, Scott, who is part of the communications team and has attended to completing CE certificates and drafting letters for the Association. Marvo described his goal of learning more about psychology as an industry and has obtained mentorship from Sandra Fisher, ED with the Oregon State Psychological Association, through the mentorship program organized by the APA. Marvo acknowledged that there is a steep learning curve and a loss of institutional knowledge related to the high rate of ED turnover over the last few years.

Michael asked about the national organizationsfrom which WSPA might gain some additional guidance and mentorship related to immediate priorities and longer term goals. Lucy described a Committee of Executives of State and Provincial Associations, within the APA Practice Organization (APAPO), which meets twice per year at the APA convention and the State Leadership Convention. Lucy reported that she works with APAPO almost daily.

Website:Marvo provided information that he has learned about WSPA’s website, including the fact that there is a “back end” management tool, which can record information such as payments made through the website. Marvo also reported that the website company has good technological support.

DPA: Lucy reported that half of her duties relate to serving WSPA members related to their practice and the other half of her duties relate to the practice of psychology. Lucy spends a significant amount of time responding to questions from members. Question topics range from personal practice questions to public interest questions. Lucy also works with exterior entities (e.g., state legislature, king county mental health, etc.) to ensure access to and delivery of appropriate and effective psychological services. Lucy discussed the importance of state DPA’s being connected to each other through the State Leadership Conference every year. Lucy provided some historical context about the DPA and legislative consultant position. Lucy reported that there was a contract lobbyist, Gail McGaffic, from 1992 to 2006. She resigned in 2006 and Lucy took over her role until this year. WSPA hired a contract lobbyist, Leslie Emmerick, beginning in January, 2016, which is a more efficient and cost effective role rather than expecting the DPA to also do all of the legislative consulting.

Bill reported that Lucy’s workshop on practice management was a large revenue earning event for WSPA last year. Lucy stated that she would be willing to do one in Idaho and in Oregon or Vancouver, as there are no DPA’s in Idaho and Oregon at this time. Lucy’s main project currently includes work on the CPT code / reimbursement issue. Lucy reported that she is working with Oregon and Utah state associations, who may be collaborating on this effort.

Lobbyist: LeslieEmerick is WSPA’s contract lobbyist. Her contract is for the 3-month duration of the current legislative session.

4. Elections and Schedule:

Elect Board members to positions:Joanna moved to approve a slate of officers: Bill as President, Sonia as President Elect, Russ as Treasurer, and Andrea as the Secretary. The motion passed without objection.

Schedule for future meetings: The Board discussed that we have an in-person meetingfrom 11-1 quarterly. We discussed 9 to 11 on Friday mornings monthly for the virtual meetings, 3rd week of the month. Our next meeting will be February 19th from 9-11 via Go To Meeting, which Marvo will arrange. Sierra will prepare a calendar of meetings for the year.

5. Areas of Focus:

Increase Membership: Bill discussed described WSPA’s membership Committee, which is lead by Chris McCurry, who is the former WSPA president. Marvo discussed that Chris developed some action items on the Membership Strategic Plan. Marvo and Chris will be ordering and prioritizing these action items, which include reinvigorating the regional chapters, discussing an affiliate rate and institutional membership, welcoming newly licensed psychologists and provide them with one year complimentary membership. Sonia discussed that the cost of membership may be prohibitive for some prospective members. Marvo will be sending a mailer as part of the lapsed membership renewal campaign, within the next 3-4 weeks. Michael and Joanna suggested that a Board member and/or a chapter president contact new members directly to welcome them to the organization.

Michael also suggested that the Board revisit its reliance on membership revenue versus programming revenue. The current budget relies heavily on membership revenue and not as much on programming revenue. Marvo and Bill will investigate how this balance compares to other states. Michael also asked that Marvo investigate and do some market research to explore if reducing rates would increase membership.

Increase Relevancy:Bill suggested that WSPA revisit the marketing plan as well as the newsletter. The Washington Psychologist (WP) newsletter has not been produced lately and used to be published every other month. Lucy encouraged Bill to post periodically on the website to provide information on WSPA board activity and provide new information that may appeal to inactive members.

Increase Revenue: WSPA products and CE plan: Bill and Marvo suggested a multifaceted approach, including online CE’s, billing services, telemedicine product which is prepared for release as soon as the marketing plan is finalized. The Board also discussed the potential benefit of stand alone CE’s rather than conferences, which seem to become an unintended cost to the association, rather than a source of revenue.

Volunteer CoordinatorThe Board briefly discussed the Advisory Board and had prepared a discussion topic related to establishing a volunteer coordinator, but the Board was not able to discuss this due to time restrictions.

6. Discussion of State Leadership Conference: Samantha Slaughter, Federal Advocacy Coordinator, provided a written letter to the Board by email and joined the meeting by speaker phone to advocate for Marvo to attend the State Leadership Conference. Lucy also agreed that it was essential that the Executive Director attend SLC related to specific duties (e.g., arranging meetings) as well as networking and relationship building. Bill and Marvo discussed that there are significant demands on Marvo’s time at this juncture, as well as WSPA’s financial priorities related to the membership campaign and a complete reorganization of WSPA’s records. Marvo stated that attending SLC would reduce his time to attend to these priorities, which he feels are important. Joanna thanked Samantha and Lucy for their thoughts in advocating for Marvo’s attendance and voiced her thoughts that Marvo’s first year as ED be dedicated to ensuring the ongoing financial and organizational viability of the Association moving forward. The Board discussed that Board members or other members who attend must pay out of pocket to attend and Russ clarified that WSPA’s 2016 budget does not include expenses related to sending Board members to SLC. Lucy reported that the Public Education Coordinator, Nancy Goldoff, will be attending SLC. Lucy suggested that the Board consider prioritizing ED’s attendance next year and the Board agreed.

Samantha also asked, as a member of the Advisory Committee, for the Board to consider a way to incorporate the Advisory Committee into Board activities. Marvo asked that Samantha forward him a list of the members, which he will forward to Sierra, who will send them a calendar of meetings.

The Board broke for lunch at 2:30pm.

Lunch break

Call to order

1. Approval of Agenda: Accepted by unanimous agreement.

2.Acceptance of December Minutes: Accepted by unanimous agreement.

3. President’s Report: Finance committee met (Laura Aspel, Marvo, Russ and Bill) and reviewed 2015 budget and 2016 projection budget. Anticipating 5-10% increase in membership, counting on revenues from stand aloneworkshops or convention, we have a lean budget and should break even. Bill spoke with Lucy about effort to work with LMHCs, Psychiatrists and LCSWs to review lawsuit.Bill spoke with Andy Benjamin regarding Washington State Mental Health data collection; state tries to project the number of licensed providers that they need and at this point they have not collected usable data. They may be out of compliance and not sure of the consequences. The state has been out of compliance with inpatient issues. Access is a very relevant issue.

4.Executive Director’s Report: Marvo (see ED report that Marvo will email). Over the next 90 days, there are four primary areas of focus: 1) office of transition, 2) membership renewals and acquisition, 3) CE event and other income streams, and 4) communications.

1) Office Transition. A. Finding past CE Sponsor Approval (CESA) renewal application. Michael asked how easily this is to find and get information; Bob Grubbs said staff took care of this and he doesn’t have the previous application. Lucy suggested Deborah Katz in Idaho or Susan Tripp in Oregon might be of help. Bob Grubbs noted that he has heard this new application is much more detailed and much more involved than in the past. The hope is to have APA approval since this is the gold standard. Bill mentioned that Washington State approval perhaps is easier to get, and might be sufficient since it meets the state license criteria. If the previous application cannot be located, and if Marvo has to do the application from scratch, he would send out questions to Board to help complete the application questions. Marvo noted another area of focus is to sort out the various financial accounts and bookkeeping; there are two accounts, one at BECU and one at Bank of America. Marvo noted that BECU has not been a great fit for WSPA so the plan is to revert to Bank of America. Also there was a Fidelity IRA account recently found, and this was not communicated to the bookkeeper. Lucy noted that she believes Bill Wear would be a good point of contact regarding this Fidelity account and might have access. Additional areas of focus including online payments from the website, bookkeeping, and subleasing the office space. Marvo will also be looking into what is in the storage unit (or units?). Also there was mention of a PO box key and Lucy noted that she believes Doug Wear might have access to the PO box. Regarding membership renewals and acquisition, Marvo noted that there is no way to tell who are the longstanding members as all member info was entered in a database a few years ago (in other words it’s difficult to determine who has been a member for many years). Regarding CE Events and other income streams, there was mention that as we get new members, we need to be able to provide a benefit to members such as CE credits. Also the plan to do Practice Checkup in both Spokane and Vancouver will also bring in revenue. Marvo noted the importance of having time to plan and market these events. Bill mentioned that another very popular topic from last year’s convention was marijuana and PTSD/depression, and that Kendall Brown from UW has done this research and this could be another topic. Bill also highlighted that marijuana use and mental health is a very relevant topic in our region related to the passage of marijuana laws in both Washington and more recently in Oregon. Sonia also noted the relevance of teens and marijuana use. Marvo shared that for the fall convention, they will create an online form to submit CE proposal ideas/call for topics. Then this list will be forwarded to CE committee and decided upon how these are planned and scheduled. Bill also noted telepsychiatry is a big issue that is still relevant and on the radar. Lucy shared thatASPPB is trying to get an inter-state compact for states to join in. To do so, 7 states have to pass legislature; these states then would agree to share the licensure requirements for each state. Lucy is following this closely. Bill also noted that partnering with L & I might be beneficial as L & I is interested in telepsychiatry. Regarding Communications, Marvo highlighted the continuing monthly CE newsletter; informing members about CE courses, WA psychologist will go bimonthly, and the incorporating social media with Facebook and twitter. Marvo also inquired about when Lucy sends emails for psychologist to “act now” regarding letters to the state, that it would be helpful if there were template letters for people to copy/paste to their local representative. Lucy mentioned that there is a program called ‘capwiz’ that is used a lot which is an online program to help with template letters.

5. Treasurer’s Report: Russ is getting supported information from Marvo and Stephanie. There are 3 reports: balance sheet, December month to date, Jan-Dec 2015 profit/loss statement. Regarding the balance sheet, the equity line noting $55,000 refers to “money in the bank.” The -$25,000 is our net income, and the profit/loss statement is connected to that number. Russ noted that as a reference, last year’s equity was $81,000 whereas this year it is $55,000 (a loss of about 25,000). In 2014, the net income was $-86,000 so this year is an improvement. Marvo, Laura and Russ project a $-5,000 for next year. Russ noted that with the newly found Fidelity fund, this might help with the budget. The goal is to get revenue and expenses more in line, and although we are getting there, it continues to be challenging. Marvo reminded the Board that with increasing membership and also having CE events, we could break even for this next year, or even end in the positive. Another factor that will help is subleasing the office space so that there are no more rental payments.