Newsletter
Dear Members & Friends of the Cleveland Association of Business Economists:
On Monday, December 14th, we invite you to attend our very popular annual financial markets forecast. Each year our financial panelists give members some good insights regarding where the markets are heading and their rationales in making these predictions. I am sure that this year will continue this tradition. I encourage you to attend and bring a friend or business associate with you when you come to the meeting.
Our look into the future will continue at the January meeting, which will be later in the month than usual. Our meeting in January will take place on Wednesday (please note the change in the day of the week), January 27th. Because we will be meeting later in January, we are planning to hold the February meeting later in the month than normal, while our March meeting is scheduled for Monday, March 15th.
Please make your reservations with Carol Robinson-Ashburn via email address carolrobinson@westfieldgrp.com no later than Thursday, December 10th or call 330.887.0414
As I mentioned in previous newsletters, in order to save a considerable amount of money, the Board of Directors this year decided to send all members a pdf file that contains the membership directory. Doing so will save CABE several hundred dollars, and may be very convenient for most members who are already happy with the electronic distribution of the newsletter. If you need any assistance or do not have access to a computer and need a printed copy, please let Carol Robinson-Ashburn, one of the other Board members or me know this, and we will try to make sure that you get an appropriate copy of the directory. To date, Carol has informed me that no requests have been made for a hard copy version of the directory. PLEASE NOTE: The 09-2010 directories will be sent via email in pdf format in January. All the renewals are rapidly coming in, but still have a few members that are forthcoming.
This is our last request in revealing the 2009-2010 Membership Application, which I ask you to complete and send in with your annual dues. The renewal fee remains the same as last year at $50 peer year for regular members, $40 for retired members, and $10 for student members. Institutional memberships stay at $200 (for 4 or more).
Dues are made payable to the Cleveland Association for Business Economics. The application can be mailed to the Cleveland Association for Business Economics, P.O. Box 580, Westfield Center, Ohio, 44251-0580.
Again, I encourage your participation at the December meeting. If not then, I hope that you can attend one of CABE’s other fine programs during forthcoming year.
Happy Holidays!
With Best Regards,
Frank Navratil
President
CABE'S NOVEMBER 9, 2009 MEETING MINUTES
The November 2009 CABE meeting was called to order at 12:27pm by Dr. Frank Navratil, CABE President. Dr. Navratil introduced Mary Taylor, Ohio's Auditor of State, who led a lively and informative discussion about the opportunities and challenges faced by her office.
Taylor, who speaks with enthusiastic determination and polish, began her remarks by indicating the State of Ohio provides her office "broad audit authority" over greater than 600 state-funded organizations, 234 of which are in Cuyahoga County. She revealed there are 830 auditors on staff, yet capacity demands as much as 40% of audit work to be subcontracted to CPA firms.
The audience seemed somewhat surprised to learn how many public corruption cases are being investigated in Ohio. Taylor indicated $21 million in misspent funds had been recovered during her time in office. While the extent to which fraud is involved is certainly a concern, she allowed some of the misspent funds involve clerical errors resulting from lax controls and missing documentation.
"In every U.S. recession since the 1950's, white collar crime has increased," Taylor declared. Currently, there are 47 active investigations in Ohio, and since taking office on January 8, 2007, Taylor has overseen 41 criminal convictions. She made clear her intention to seek the highest punishable result in cases of white collar theft and mentioned Ohio has established a fraud hotline, which has received more than 1,200 anonymous inquiries during her tenure.
Focusing on northeast Ohio, Taylor mentioned the Cuyahoga County corruption investigation is being handled by federal authorities. She reflected on a special audit for Cleveland Public Schools, suggesting typical schemes such as the creation of fake vendors are often uncovered.
Taylor briefly discussed federal stimulus dollars and how they are being spent in Ohio. She referenced a website (ohiostimulustracker.com) that provides a breakdown of federal stimulus spending by county.
Taylor touched on how her office has dealt with the budget crunch resulting from the recession. "We initiated a voluntary furlough program," stated Taylor. "We also arranged for some employees to take early retirement and I asked all employees to take a 2 percent pay cut.“
Improving technology is of primary concern to Taylor. She indicated that most of her domain remains very paper-based and that she intends for it to be paperless in six months. Fielding a technology-related question from the audience, Taylor shared, "There are still local governments in Ohio that keep records on ledgers with pencils. It's true. They simply have no computers. It's as much as 20 percent.“
Dr. Navratil adjourned the meeting at 1:05pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Scott Ashburn
CABE, Vice President
(Submitted on behalf of Guhan Venkatu, CABE Secretary)