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A Financial Snapshot of the California Library Association
Do you ever wonder how your CLA dues are spent when you join or renew your annual membership? We occasionally receive some questions about CLA's finances, so we have prepared some charts that illustrate where our revenue comes from and where it goes. CLA's annual income and expenses are expected to be close to $750,000 for the current fiscal year.
In Chart 1, you will see that the annual conference is responsible for 50% of CLA's income, with dues representing 30%. Job Mart, rental income from the building, and interest and dividends represent another 18%. 
In Chart 2, you will see that expenses for the conference, which include speakers, meeting room rental, the receptions and meals, the exhibit hall expenses and contracted services are 33% of our planned expenses. Close behind that expense is personnel, the staff in the CLA office. CLA spends 13% of our revenue on legislative expenses, primarily CLA's lobbyists, and 8% of the budget is spent on administration and another 8% is spent on the building. Governance and membership expenses run to 7%.
A longitudinal view of the organization's income and expenses is shown in Charts 3 and 4. As you can see in Chart 3, Income Trends, there have been some wide fluctuations in conference income over the last ten years, while dues income has been more stable.
On the expense side (Chart 4), the cost of the conference varies primarily due to location and speaker honoraria. For example, the conference in Ontario (2003-04) cost significantly less than the conference in San Jose (2004-05) because of the difference in convention center rental. 
Members of the Finance Committee or the staff would be happy to answer any questions about CLA's finances. Finance Committee members include Annette Milliron, Treasurer, North Bay Cooperative Library System, Joan Allen Hart, San Diego County Public Law Library, Jackie Griffin, Berkeley Public Library, Diana Paque, John F. Kennedy University, Jean Scully, Redondo Beach Public Library, Sally Tseng, Chinese American Librarians Association, and Diana Wu, San Jose State University.
Annette Milliron, Treasurer
annetnbc@sonic.net
Posted on January 10, 2006 2:59 PM | Permalink