Budget panel works on portal and Dignity in Law programs.

The Bar's Budget Committee is working toward a balanced budget for the 2003-04 fiscal year that may allow for the proposed free Internet portal for Bar members that will include legal research. The tentative bud get will also allow for the continuation of the Dignity in Law program but with per haps reduced funding.

2003-04 Budget Committee Chair Jesse Diner brought that message to the Board of Governors at its January. 31 meeting in Tallahassee. The board also got reports on Dignity in Law and the portal.

Diner, who also chairs the special committee that is reviewing the. Dignity in Law effort, will formally present the budget to the board at its April 4 meeting in Kissimmee.

"As of this moment, your budget for the next year is not yet balanced. I think there are some things that by the time we come to the budget next time [at Kissixnmee], it will be balanced," he told the board.

"At this time, it is $300,000 to $400,000 out of balance," he added. "That is not any thing out of the. ordinary. There are still some items that are being looked at and numbers that are being tweaked."

Current Budget Committee Chair Jerald Beer reported that the Bar, halfway through the 2002-03 budget, is breaking even.

"The state of the budget right now is it looks like we're close to being on a break-even budget, but it's a little hard to tell at this juncture," he said.

The board increased annual membership dues in the 2001-02 budget--the first hike in 11 years--and had hoped to be running surpluses in the budget. But a slow economy and hard times for its investments, as well as expenditures for Dignity in Law, have led to tighter than expected fiscal plans.

Dignity in Law

While calling the Dignity in Law program a resounding success, Diner told the board budgetary realities may force the Bar to scale back the program next year.

"While this program has been extremely laudable, we may not be able to fund this program--given the current budgetary status -- at the rate we funded it this past year," Diner said. "The Bar simply may not be able to afford it."

Diner recommended that some of the campaign be brought in-house and rbb, the Coral Gables public relations firm hired this year to manage the program, be used in a consulting role in the future.

Diner said a Bar survey of voluntary bar associations "shows that overwhelmingly they think it should be a part of the Bar's budget going forward."

"Rbb did an outstanding job," Diner said. "They took this thing by...