Board finalizes Bar budget.

With some slight changes that improve the bottom line, the Board of Governors has given final approval to the Bar's 2003-2004 budget. The fiscal plan will now be forwarded to the Supreme Court for review.

Incoming Budget Committee Chair Jesse Diner said since the budget was initially approved in early April, the Bar's Center for Professionalism had found $25,000 in savings and a recalculation of CLER revenues had produced an additional $102,250. He reported at the board's May 30 meeting in Key West.

That produced a slightly better bottom line in what had been called a break-even budget for the 2003-04 fiscal year, which begins July 1. Overall, the Bar will begin the budget year with about $10.6 million on hand and it expects revenues totaling about $30 million.

For the second year in a row, there will be no increase in annual membership fees. They remain at $265 for active members and $175 for inactive members. A complete breakdown of the new budget was published in the April 30 News.

The budget provides funding for the Bar's Dignity in Law Program, although with a $300,000 appropriation instead of $750,000 appropriated in the 2002-03 budget year. Many of the program's operations, though, will be done by Bar staff in the coming year.

Board member Robert Rush renewed objections from the April meeting over reducing the Dignity in Law budget, saying the Bar has begun public relations efforts before and then failed to follow through.

"I think we're being short-sighted," he said. "We're not going to get twice the return by cutting the budget in half."

He likened the Bar's position to a grocery store with a top-notch produce section not countering stories that its fruits and vegetables are old and spoiled.

While critics bash the legal profession, Rush said the reality is "if you lie, cheat or steal, you're not a lawyer in Florida. We need to get that information out."

At the April meeting, other board members had argued the Bar could continue to provide an effective program at a lower cost by bringing operations in-house and that the Bar's tight finances precluded spending more.

The only other change made to the budget was to allow the certification program to spend $15,200 to continue the listings of certified lawyers in the Bar Journal directory issue. Board member Hank Coxe made the motion to restore those pages to the directory, noting that it would be certification funds and not Bar general revenues that paid for the listings.

Diner said the...