NARFE Tennessee Federation Message Board

The National Executive Board has decided to do a referendum on making changes to membership dues. Presidents have been mailed version 1 of this referendum, but version 2 was not mailed out. It will be printed and reported on in the Magazine. This is proposing to do away with separate national dues and chapter dues going instead to a single NARFE dues. I think most everyone would prefer a single dues, myself included, but I have some problems with the current referendum. I have expressed my concerns with National, they did make some changes between version 1 and version 2 but not enough in my opinion.

Under the current plan, the new dues will be $40. National is set to gain a small amount ($0.90 for members who pay annually) even though they report that this is no increase in dues. Federations will gain $1.10 per member and as far as chapters go, some will see and increase and some will see a decrease in dues returned. The amount of dues returned to chapters will be $9 for annually paying members and $8 for dues withholding members. Many members will have to pay more in dues, which will be divided between national, federation and the chapter. Chapters which now have dues set higher than $8 will see reduced income.

I believe the referendum should also include changes in the requirement that the federations receive 10% of the dues. I think that if there is a set dollar amount for total dues and what the chapters receive, there should also be a set dollar amount for the federations. This would also require a Bylaws change but it could have been included in the referendum. In short, federations will benefit the most, but at the expense of the chapters.

Reply and post your comments