The Massage Pundit

This is a follow-up to my blog of June 19 about AMTA’s fiscal responsibility.  In the next couple of months I will be reporting on the financial condition of all our non-profit professional organizations.

Someone from AMTA asked me why I didn’t pick on ABMP, and the short answer is, they are a not a non-profit organization. When an organization holds itself out as non-profit, the membership (and the public) has a right to know. Incidentally, I am a member of both organizations.

The recession has not been kind to AMTA.  According to their Form 990, the organization has taken a 5.6 million-dollar hit on their investments (publicly traded securities) during the fiscal year from March 2008-Feb 2009. While assets decreased, liabilities increased by almost 1 million dollars since last year. Total revenues were down by $513,000, in spite of the fact that there was an increase of $424,000 in dues collected.

Of course, neither AMTA nor any individual who has investments can foresee the future (well, maybe Warren Buffet), but perhaps the $200K or so they lost at the beginning of the economic decline in 2007 should have been a harbinger of painful things to come.

Fiscal responsibility dictates that when there’s a recession on, some belt-tightening is in order. In reality, when a recession forces an organization to examine their financial responsibilities and separate the wheat from the chaff, that strategy needs to remain the rule of the day no matter what the economic environment.

AMTA cut travel expenses last year by $9000. In the general scheme of things, that isn’t much, but every little bit helps. AMTA forked out $12,000 less for lobbyists this year, and in this atmosphere of rule and regulation changes, lawsuits and challenges to state boards, and health care legislation in general gone wild, I’m not convinced that was the right place to cut.

Liz Lucas, executive director of AMTA, actually received almost $35,000 less in compensation and benefits than she did last year, which proved to be contrary to rumors circulating that had prompted my inquiry in the first place. However, total wages and salaries at AMTA increased by $200,000. If AMTA is hiring and giving out raises to their regular employees during a recession, more power to them.

In spite of the economic downturn, AMTA was able to give $261K in grants to COMTA and $118K to the Massage Therapy Foundation.

One or two things did jump out at me on the 990. One, earlier this year I was told that the salary of Liz Lucas and other board members was performance-based and determined partly by the recommendation of an independent compensation consulting firm. That was not checked on this year’s filing; instead it was stated that “benchmark data” and that the Board’s own Performance Review Committee recommended Lucas’ salary, based on objectives for the organization and whether or not those had been met.

Also, the statement that the return was reviewed by an Audit Committee composed of “various financially astute board members” got my attention. Should a board be auditing themselves? Well, yes, but not officially. Hopefully there is an outside independent  auditor as well; it wasn’t mentioned.

To summarize, AMTA had a less than ideal year, financially. They’re not on the brink of bankruptcy, and in response to my earlier request for information, President Judy Stahl had informed me that they have adequate cash reserves. One does hope that they’ll look for less risky investments in the future, or bury that money in a Mason jar in the backyard. It won’t earn any interest, but at least 5.6  million bucks won’t go up in smoke.