In article <
[email protected]>,
<
[email protected]> wrote:
> Casey Kerrigan wrote:
> > In article <[email protected]>, TJ
> > <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> <snip>
> >
> > Do you live in an area that is serviced by a USAC local asociation?
> If
> > so then $10 of every annnual USCF license fee is rebated to your
> local
> > association to help support local programs in your area. How the
> money
>
> Wow. And the other $50?
I guess you have no clue as to what it costs to keep the doors open at
USAC. Let's dig into the financial picture of USAC. The following is
from the 2003 USAC 990 tax form ( since USAC is a 501(c)(3) non-profit
corporation their 990 tax forms are public record and available online.
In 2003 a USAC license was $50
Membership dues for 2003 resulted in $3,167,290 in revenue. Total
revenue for 2003 was $11,231,720. This means that membership revenue
represents 28.2% of total revenue for USAC
In 2003 USAC had expenses of 10,643,543 so in 2003 USAC actually had a
profit of 588,177 for 2003.
Now what did USAC spend money on in 2003
Compensation of officers and directors 172,500
Other salaries and wages 2,043,188
Employee benefits 513,086
payroll taxes 188,788
Phone bills 163,768
postage and shipping 227,085
Printing and publications 241,992
travel 1,467
Depreciation 76,853
Total 7,014,816
So basically twice as much as what has been taken in as membership dues
has already been spent on salaries, and office expenses.
2,616,646 was spent on the national team programs and coaches and
144,234 was spent on Paralympic programs ( travel nd staff costs
associated with the Paralympic athlete competitions and training.
Some other notable expenses.
Insurance 1,106,965 This is the liability and medical insurance
coverage needed to hold races. Note that I've heard that the cost of
insurance went up abour $500,000 for 2005 and I'm sure the cost of
insurance for 2004 was higher than what is listed in 2003.
Bad debts 24,714
Utilities 5,646
Bank charges 56,100
local rebates
and awards 246,839
The above should give you an idea of where your license fees are going.
>
> > is spent is up to your local assoication. If your area doesn't have a
> > local assoication then how come ? Get together with other local
> peoiple
> > and organize a local assoication and you could be getting the USCF
> > license rebate from USAC to support grass roots racing in your
> region.
> > As I said before USAC will never have the resources to run grass
> roots
> > programs on the local level but they support the local associations
> > which are in a position to develop and run grass roots programs.
>
> So for $50/rider USAC doesn't have the resources to support local
> programs, but for $10/rider the local association should be able to do
> it. Did I get that right?
Yes since the local assoications are albe to use volunteers while USAC
would have to pay employees. Note that the bulk of expenses paid by
USAC is already going to pay for the employees they already have ( who
can barely cover the current workload much less take on additional
duties.
>
> >
> > If you can't see some of the improvements that USAC has made in the
> > past couple of year then I don't think you are looking very hard.
> >
> > Today you can renew your license online and print out a Temp license
> > right away and get your regular license in about a week. Only a
> couple
> > of years ago you had to mail a paper license renewal and it could
> take
> > 2 or more weeks to get your license back. Since you had no Temp
> license
> > you were basicallt out of luck in terms of racing while waiting for
> > your regular license.
> >
> > Today you can apply for a license upgrade online and in some cases
> have
> > your upgrade approved in a hour or so. It wasn't that long ago that
> > getting an upgrade involved making a copy of your license and mailing
> > it in and waiting for an upgrade sticker to be mailed back to you.
>
> On-line licensing?! This is almost as good as telling us that nearly
> 20% of our license fee goes to support the association that actual
> helps out with racing. My club also has on-line membership, uniforms,
> equipment orders, member forums ... It did take one of our riders a
> couple days to get the pages up.
I think the USAC systemis just a bit more conplicated that the one your
clud has
>
> >
> > Today officials and promoters can downlaod the current USCF database
> so
> > that if a rider forgets their license the database can be used to
> > confirm the rider has a license and can race. The database Info can
> > also be used ot help automate the Reg and results process speeding up
> > the registration and results process at races. In the past this
> > database information wasn't available to promoters and officials.
> >
> "Database can be used ... " yeah, if you write your own software to use
> it. 500(?) clubs all writing their own registration software, and
> probably three of them work smoothly.
No need for every club to write their own software. A simple database
or spreadsheet program that many people already have can get the job
done. I know at least one online Reg service that has a software
package promoters can use. In Nor Cal we have a speread sheet base
program that promoters can use if they want.
>
> > All of these are [positive changes that leads to better benefits and
> > services to USAC members for their license fees.
>
> Start at the bottom and there's no way to go but up. Just off the top
> of my head, how about:
>
> *Resources for race promoters - "how to" documentation, maybe even a
> person who can answer questions, give organizational guidance, and
> eliminate re-invention of a process every time a new race gets started
> or a change in club leadership occurs.
USCF has had this in the past. One problem is that in todays liability
climate producing these types of matterials can also drag you into
future lawsuits if a rider is seriously hurt and the promoter was just
following the guidelines.
>
> Registration software - What about some software that uses the member
> database, supports networking of Windows PC's (sorry if you don't like
> it, it's ubiquitous),
Yea go ahead and simply blow off alll of us Mac useres.
> record of signed once-per-season rider release
> form.
To bad many local governments will probably not go for this idea. Today
we just finished a 5 week training race series and one of the
conditions placed on the race by the city where the race was held was
that riders had to fill out a new release form each week. This isn't an
issue that USAC can control.
> A rider arrives at a race, gives license number and $25, get's
> race number and leaves in 30 seconds. Available free to USAC event
> promoters.
We have a number of promoters in Nor Cal that use a system that gets
people through registration pretty quick even with riders needing
release forms.
>
> *Resources for Juniors - how about some generic advice on how to bring
> a 12, 15, or 18 year old rider into the sport? How much training is
> appropriate? What order should skills be introduced and what level of
> proficiency is adequate/good/great?
>
> *Educational programs - bringing information about cycling into school
> phys. ed. classes to increase participatory interest in the sport.
> Even just providing a package of material and how-to guide for clubs to
> do it in their own area would be useful.
>
> *Cycling advocacy - working with state governments to protect and
> increase access to roads for cyclists, maybe even an awareness program
> to inform the general public (and police where necessary) of cyclists'
> legal right to use the road.
>
> *Legal counsel - available to riders who have been hit, assaulted,
> verbally harassed or otherwise abused because of a lack of cycling
> advocacy (see above).
>
> *Infrastructure - spearheading efforts to build velodromes, lobbying
> government or corporate sponsors to assist with this or
> regional/national races series, advocacy for public land access for mtb
> trails. Our regional association brings several thousand dollars worth
> of equipment to a race for the $10/rider kickback they get (there's no
> additional license/membership fee for the association). Imagine if we
> had 4 or 5 times that in equipment from USAC for our $50/rider. It
> would make one hell of a professional looking spectacle (overhead
> start/finish clock, neutral support, barricades, national USAC sponsor
> banners, who knows what else) and may even raise interest in the sport.
> Your welcome for the advice,
Yea if license fees are increased to like $600 per year USAC might have
enough money to pay for the salaries of the additional employees that
would be neede to make the above wish list come true. Or do you have
some bette ridea about how USAC could possible pay for all of the
above?