President's Report
2001 - 2002
Good afternoon everyone. It has been an honor and a privilege to have been your President for the past year. During this year, and the 2 years prior as President-Elect, and Vice-President of your association, it has been my pleasure and responsibility to represent you on the NC Federation of Associations at National meetings in Mississippi and New Mexico, the meetings of the NC Ag Foundation, Board of Directors (2002), PILO Conference in Washington, D.C. 2000 and 2001, Southern Region (JCEP) Leader's Workshops in Athens, GA, 2002, and Dallas Fort Worth in 2002. During these years, I have been privileged to work with your Board of Directors, Vice-Directors, and other officers, various committee chairs, and the membership at-large. We have faced a number of challenges during this time.
Our Trust Fund investments and investments from Board Savings reached an all-time high as Everett mentioned in 1999, before the deep slide in stock market values that have followed since then. We have taken steps and actions to ensure that our association is in good graces with IRS. IRS informed us late in 2000 or early 2001 that we were late in filing our 990 forms. Our records were incomplete with some parts of the puzzle missing back in the early 90's according to the accountant. It took several months to accomplish locating sufficient information for the accountant to be sure that records could stand up to IRS audits. To make the story shorter, Gayle Smith finally got enough together in November of 2002 to file 990 forms for us for 1996, 97, 98, 99 and 2000. A letter was written to IRS with the filing of these forms, requesting the IRS to waive any penalties and interest. A few months later, we received penalty notices for 4 of the 5 years. Another letter has now been sent to IRS requesting a waiver of the penalties. We hope that will happen!! Gayle believes they will be waived. She charged us $6,802.00 for filing the forms and all the accounting for bringing the records up-to-date over an 11-year time frame. The 2002 return has now been prepared and signed and mailed to IRS. Hopefully the penalties will be waived, if not, we will continue to incur interest on the penalties until such time as the penalties are paid in full with interest since notification. (That amount would essentially wipe out our current Board Savings balance).
We have elected to plan and pursue a bid for the National meeting for the year 2008, as you have heard about. We have chosen to provide a greater cash award for our Communications Awards recipients as you heard them presented at lunch today. We have also made it a requirement to attend the state meeting to receive the cash. DSA's have received $1000 each in 2001 and will in 2002 to match what AA recipients have been receiving.
We have answered the request of the NC Association of Extension Secretaries to help them financially to develop an awards program for their association. They requested $10,000 three years ago. We chose to break it up and give it over a 5-year period of $2,000 each year depending on availability of funds.
I believe that our Board has tried to act in the best interest of our membership and the NC Association of County Agricultural Agents. Now, let me thank you for allowing me to serve you and our association in this capacity! I want to also encourage all the young agents to get involved in this association. Ask about serving on committees, and get involved in the association as soon as you possibly can. County Directors and other experienced agents--I challenge you to help the younger agents along, whenever possible, find the funds from county government or other viable sponsors to help them with the cost of membership dues, and the registration fees and other expenses required to attend the state and national meetings of our association. The young agents are the future of our association and our organization and they need your help and support to become active and keep them interested in this association. Thank you again for allowing me to serve as your President, and I will carry this experience and the memories with me always.
Johnny Hensley