By: dmc-admin//March 10, 2004//
The State Bar of Wisconsin Board of Governors will be asked next week to approve a measure permitting the bars Finance Committee, as it finalizes next years budget, to include a $14 dues hike for the states 21,000 lawyers.
That sum represents a compromise, says Finance Committee Chair Dean R. Dietrich, of Wausaus Ruder, Ware & Michler LLSC, because its the appropriate amount in light of some reductions made for current budget allocations, in combination with what will be needed to fund a few new areas. He adds that the committee carefully scrutinized all funding requests for new and existing programs, and did say no to some of them. They also did not approve a request to add one or two new positions to the bar staff.
State Bar President-elect Michelle A. Behnke, a Madison sole practitioner, stresses that the dues increase is not a done deal. Behnke chairs the bars Revenue Review Committee, the group charged last year with making a recommendation on whether a dues increase was warranted. She explains that if the governors do not approve it, or approve a lesser amount for the increase, the Finance Committee will rework the budget accordingly.
The proposal should not come as a surprise to the governors or the bars membership, she notes. At the Board of Governors meeting in November, she reported that her committee was recommending a dues increase of an unspecified amount, in light of projected deficits. The exact amount would be debated at the March meeting, according to the minutes from that meeting. The governors authorized the Finance Committee to consider a dues increase.
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The last dues increase of $35, which represented a 20 percent dues increase, was passed in January 1999. Previously, a $25 increase was implemented in Fiscal Year 1997, and before that, a $20 increase in Fiscal Year 1991.
For her part, Behnke will vote in favor of the dues increase. It costs the bar more every year to turn on the lights and buy paper not to mention the increasing cost of providing health insurance to bar staff. And we cant ask them to go without a wage increase again, she observes.
Typically the bars budget of approximately $9 million is approved at the May meeting, for the upcoming fiscal year that kicks off in July. By approving the increase now, the bar staff would be able to proceed with printing and mailing dues statements, so that monies are received before and as the new fiscal year begins. If there is a delay in the bar receiving the dues, it must tap into a line of credit.
The Board of Governors will consider the dues hike at its March 19 meeting at the State Bar Center in Madison.