VSB dues would be cut by $10

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You may be paying lower bar dues next year.

Bar dues would go down $10, and VSB employees would get a 5 percent raise, under a 2011-12 budget adopted March 14 by the Virginia State Bar’s budget and finance committee.

The budget is subject to approval by the Supreme Court of Virginia and VSB Council.

The committee’s actions followed the agency’s successful lobbying battle against a proposal by Gov. Robert McDonnell to take $5 million from the VSB’s operating reserve.

VSB President Irving M. Blank and VSB staff emphasized to legislators that the agency’s operating reserve – projected to be just over $5 million at the end of this fiscal year – was composed solely of mandatory dues from state lawyers. No tax money was involved.

They also pointed out that the surplus had been declining and began increasing only after the salaries of bar employees were frozen in 2007.

The budget adopted last week would chop about $830,000 out of the reserve in FY 2012. The new dues structure and projected 4 percent pay increases in each of the next two fiscal years would reduce it to less than $3 million – about 22 percent of operating revenue.

Alan S. Anderson, chairman of the budget committee, said of the decrease in bar dues, “To the bar, it’s a lot of money. To the individual lawyer, it’s symbolic, but it’s an important symbol.” Bar dues have been $250 annually since 2000.

President-elect George W. Shanks noted that VSB dues already are among the lowest in the country – 30th out of 33 mandatory bars. In that context, the decrease is “more than symbolic. It reinforces that we’re giving our members an incredible value,” he said. The drop in dues would eliminate $363,500 from VSB revenue in 2012.

Much of the discussion focused on the touchiness of providing more money for VSB employees than other state workers, including other court system employees, will be getting.

Under the budget adopted by the General Assembly, state workers would get a 5 percent raise, but they also would have to contribute 5 percent of their salary to the Virginia Retirement System.

The proposed VSB budget includes that same plan plus a 5 percent raise for agency employees. The cost would be $334,560.

Bar staff noted that their last pay raise – 4 percent in 2007 – was half what most court system employees received at that time. This time, VSB employees would get a 5 percent net increase while most state employees would get only the increase to their retirement contributions from having a higher base salary.

Blank was among the committee members who indicated that that they would have liked to have given large raises if he thought they would be acceptable to the Supreme Court and bar members.
He noted that a court system employee who earned $40,000 annually in 2007 would have received $4,800 more than VSB employee with the same salary over the last three years.

“Our employees … have not been treated fairly,” he said.

W. David Harless, who will succeed Shanks as VSB president, urged caution, however. “This won’t go anywhere without the blessing of the Supreme Court. We must meet their notion of what’s fair.”

He said he believes the VSB can make a compelling argument for the 5 percent raise. “More would be a problem politically and with the membership,” he said.

The committee also approved contributing $100,000 to the Clients’ Protection Fund from an account set up to handle such self-sustaining projects as the VSB annual meeting and a seminar outside the country. The account has grown to about $350,000 over the years from surpluses from those activities.

Shanks suggested that a more equitable use of at least some of the money might be enhancing the annual meeting since surpluses from it provided most of the money in the fund. Those enhancements could include a lower charge for younger or first-time attendees or for speakers or entertainers, he said.

Past president Jon D. Huddleston, a member of a committee established to develop plans for a better annual meeting, said the committee had not considered dipping into the surplus for such enhancements. The budget committee agreed to allocate as much as $30,000 for improvements to the meeting, which usually costs about $100,000 annually.