In the 2003 election, APA voting members will be asked to vote on a proposal to reduce the size of the Board of Trustees by two positions and add the immediate past president to the Board’s Executive Committee.
The proposal was first discussed at the Board’s meeting in September. It was part of a larger proposal offered by APA’s Long-Range Budget and Planning Task Force to limit the number of participants at Board meetings. This component, which is chaired by APA President Paul Appelbaum, M.D., is charged with making recommendations to the Board of Trustees regarding restructuring of the Association to improve functioning and minimize cost.
After much discussion, the Board voted to abolish one of the two vice-president positions and to combine the secretary and treasurer positions into one office to be known as secretary-treasurer (Psychiatric News, October 4).
As currently constituted, the Board has 21 voting members.
If the amendment is approved by voting members, one of the vice-president positions will be eliminated beginning with the 2004 election. The first member to serve as secretary-treasurer will be nominated for treasurer in 2003, elected in 2004, and become secretary-treasurer in 2005, at the conclusion of the last secretary's term. The first members to run for the position of secretary-treasurer will be nominated in 2005 for APA’s 2006 election.
The addition of the immediate past president to the Executive Committee in 2003 would bring its membership total to nine. However, effective in May 2005, when the transition to the Board’s new composition is complete, the Executive Committee would have seven members: the president, president-elect, vice president, secretary-treasurer, speaker of the Assembly, and the immediate past president, who are voting members, and the medical director, who is not a voting member.
For the amendment to pass in the 2003 election, 33 1/3 percent of APA’s eligible voting members must vote on the amendment, and of these a majority must approve it. If adopted, the amendment becomes effective upon certification by the Committee of Tellers to the Board sometime in March.
Ballots will be mailed to all voting members on January 6; the deadline for online voting or return of completed ballots to Intelliscan Inc., APA’s election management firm, is February 6.
More information on the amendment, as well as the candidates running for office in the 2003 election, will appear in the next issue. ▪
