To begin, I want to thank the ARPAS Governing Council for the opportunity to serve as the national ARPAS treasurer. It has been a pleasure serving the organization through this role. I am now passing the responsibilities to John Bernard, past president of ARPAS, and wish him great success in his new position.

Through the first five months of 2021, our national ARPAS organization remains in a solid financial position nearly identical to YTD 2020. Year over year, through May, the Total Net Asset position is just behind May 2020 by $13,773, due in part to $4,000 less membership dues and corporate sponsorships. Corporate sponsorships are $2,000 ahead of budget for 2021 yet $6,000 lower than was achieved in 2020. Fortunately, regular memberships are up ~$4,000 over 2020 but still lagging $4,000 below what was budgeted for 2021. Hopefully the relaxing of COVID-19 restrictions and the reopening of schools and conferences will increase the number of students and other interested parties taking the test and joining ARPAS.

We continue to see positive interest in the ARPAS journal even though page charges through May have slipped a bit behind 2020. It is hard to tell whether this is due to normal publication timing, a decline in submission of acceptable manuscripts, or a decline in author interest.  I’ll have to leave it to Beede to shine some light on that subject. The last item of income is our invested assets that have enjoyed nice growth through five months with an unrealized gain of ~$5,600.

From an expense standpoint our costs are right in line with 2020. An outstanding liability of $50,000 to Elsevier is creating an artificial expense savings but will soon be realized when that bill becomes due. Otherwise, FASS and other regular expenses are tracking well with our budget and are nearly identical to 2020.

Last, I’d like to thank Cummings for his leadership and support over the last 13 years. Cummings’s keen business sense and organizational skills have been instrumental in helping build ARPAS to the leading organization it is today. As he steps aside, I’m confident we are now in very capable hands with Kertz and will enjoy his expertise honed in the halls of ADSA.

As always, we need to continue our focus on membership growth while remaining fiscally conscious. But most importantly, stay safe and stay well!