HLAA Convention Annual Business Meeting - Part 1
This is part one of two parts.
The Annual Business Meeting followed the open Board Meeting. The first
order of business was another look at the organization's finances,
presented by Sean Smith. Sean is the Financial Services Coordinator and
Controller.
Sean reported that the final audit is still a couple of weeks away.
HLAA had a surplus of $57,720 in 2006, which represents an 11% increase in
the $530,409 in net assets at the end of 2005. While "nothing to write
home about", this is a decent increase and an indication that the
organization's fiscal health is improving.
Sean noted that HLAA must strengthen its reserve fund, which varies
between $35,000 and $125,000, depending on recent cash flow. The goal for
a reserve fund is to have six months to a year of operating expenses,
which means that the HLAA reserve fund should be at least $650,000.
Budgeted revenues for 2007 are $1,433,000, and budgeted expenses are
$1,423,000, which represents a budgeted surplus of $10,000.
Following the financial report, Executive Director Terry Portis
discussed where HLAA finds itself today and where it is going.
He began his presentation by considering why we are here. The short
answer is because no one else is doing what HLAA is doing. Terry noted
that Rocky Stone asked other organizations to provide the needed services
before he started SHHH. Only after none of them stepped up did he
establish SHHH in 1979. At the time, most of the organizations did not
include "and hard of hearing" in their mission statements or organization
names. Only in the last ten years when the number of hard of hearing
people became more generally known did many organizations add that phrase.
People with hearing loss struggle in their daily lives. Rates of
depression for people with hearing loss are five times the national
average; for family members of people with hearing loss, the rate is 2.5
times the national average. Hearing loss also contributes to severe
anxiety, self esteem issues, and employment issues. Recent research
reveals that untreated hearing loss can cost as much as $12,000 in annual
salary, and that using hearing aids recovers only a fraction of that
amount.
People with hearing loss generally don't know what to do to deal with
it. Terry and Denise were in that situation as Denise's hearing gradually
declined. Then a friend at church told them about a local SHHH group. They
thought it was just a local group, but as they got involved, they learned
that it's a national organization with chapters everywhere!
The audiologist did a hearing test and filled out the audiogram, but
offered no support or information on hearing loss. They also got no
support or information from the ENT or our family doctor. The hearing loss
information they received that changed their lives came from this
wonderful organization.
HLAA is still operating with a skeleton staff. In 2002 SHHH was under
extreme duress, and had to significantly reduce staff just to keep the
doors open. They're still at that staffing level, but are doing a lot more
than just keeping the doors open! Still for each person they've helped,
there are three thousand people with hearing loss who don't know about
HLAA!
Terry thinks that advocacy is the most important activity at HLAA.
According to a recent members survey, the members agree. HLAA's Brenda
Bataat is the best hearing loss advocate in the country!
Terry was recently at a meeting in Washington where Senator Coleman
said that Washington has a thousand issues, but only a few priorities.
That's why HLAA is fighting with thousands of other organizations for time
and money and attention. Everyone must continue to support our
organization if we hope to become a priority.
HLAA has had two big advocacy victories in the past year. People need
to understand that advocacy involves a lot of meetings, some of which are
only to arrange additional meetings. Advocacy at the national level takes
years, and some recent victories have been ten years in the making!
It's a little different at the local level. If your local theater
doesn't have ALDs, or if they're sitting on a shelf somewhere, you can
often get very quick results just by talking to the theater manager. The
lack of services on the local level is partially due to the fact that we
don't advocate for ourselves. One example that drives Terry nuts concerns
the 2000 churches that meet in movie theaters. A recent survey indicates
that not a single one of them is taking advantage of the infrared systems
that already exist in virtually every theater!
Terry see five key issues that HLAA needs to address: communications
support, telecommunications access, early hearing detection in infants, a
hearing aid tax credit, and community access.
The goal of communications support is functional equivalency. It must
be built in, so that a person with hearing loss doesn't have to pay extra
for it. One example of an effort that has moved us towards functional
equivalency is the CapTel phone. Ultratec really went out on a limb years
ago to develop the technology to make CapTel happen. But they did it and
it is currently the closest thing to functional equivalency that we have.
When IP Captioned Telephone is operational, you'll be able to talk on
your cell phone and then read the captions on your laptop! Before too long
you may not even need the laptop, but will be able to read the captions on
your web-enabled cell phone!
HLAA has to stay on top of all these communications issues. We'll lose
them if we don't fight to keep them. Last fall we fought a battle to keep
the FCC from opening up television captioning exemptions. The broadcasters
see captioning as government intrusion, rather than as the right thing to
do from both a moral and a business perspective.
One of the key goals of telecommunications access is to get all cell
phones to be hearing aid compatible. We will continue to make progress
towards that goal, but probably won't see 100% compatibility for many
years. But the technology is changing so rapidly, and we have to be sure
to stay on top of this issue. A current example is the iPhone, which will
not be accessible when it is released next month. We've met with AT&T to
express our concerns about this.
We've made a lot of progress in early hearing detection in the past few
years, moving from 50% inclusion ten years ago to about 98% today. So
that's real progress. But now the problem is that there is no follow-up
for the kids who are identified as having hearing loss. Those who do have
follow-up often only hear about the ASL option and are advised to enroll
in the School for the Deaf. HLAA is very concerned that much of the
follow-up is provided by people who work for the Schools for the Deaf and
have a vested interest in steering the kids to those schools.
The Hearing Aid Tax Credit is important for two reasons. One is because
of the need to raise Congressional awareness of the significance of
hearing loss, and the other is save money for people who must buy hearing
aids. The projected savings is about a billion dollars over five years.
Community Access involves a whole range of issues where each of us
lives. How was the airport accessibility on your trip here? How about
accessibility on the airplane? We have to work on these issues at the
local level, and when we have success, we need to share our resources and
our methods with others who are fighting the same battles in different
locations.
Here's Part Two
