They
will serve until December 31, 2005.
If
you know of any candidates you would like to nominate
for 2004-2006, please let me know and I will pass their
names on to SMC’s nominating committee.
Secondly,
I would like to take this opportunity to touch upon several
issues of concern to SMC. First, during the past few years,
SMC itself has done very well financially, with reserves
of $1.5 million at the end of 2002. However, as many of
you know, IEEE itself is running huge deficits (of the
order of over $30 million for 2001, $26 million in 2002,
and as yet to be determined losses for 2003) due to IEEE’s
massive increases in expenditures while at the same time
incurring stock market losses; all societies, including
SMC, are being taxed by IEEE to cover these deficits (SMC’s
tax was over $839,000 for 2001).
Because
of the financial situation IEEE is in, there is a debate
as to what the professional and scientific goals and programs
of IEEE should be. For 2003, SMC is budgeted to have a
profit of over $500,000, but $475,000 of that will be
taken away in the form of “infrastructure taxes”
and “TAB support”. Much of this money is “transferred”
to other parts of IEEE units, e.g., Regional Activities
Board, IEEE Corporate Headquarters, etc., to pay for their
programs and staff. Unfortunately, this has a negative
affect on SMC as well as other societies. For example,
in order to pay these “taxes”, we are asked
to cut our food budgets at our conferences (without cutting
the registration fees – in fact we are asked to
raise the registration fees!), cut the page count of our
journals (which will mean more backlogs and a longer wait
for authors to get their papers published, if they even
get accepted), and reduce other programs. The societies
really have no say over how the other IEEE units “spend”
the taxes we pay, that is decided by the IEEE Board of
Directors who represent IEEE as a whole. This situation
is causing all societies great financial difficulties,
with some societies close to bankruptcy. Thus, you, as
members of SMC and of IEEE, need to get involved in this
debate as the decisions made in the future by the IEEE
Board of, Directors, will affect you professionally, especially
if you go to IEEE conferences or publish papers in our
proceedings.
I
strongly urge all SMC members to vote in the next IEEE
election for candidates who promote fiscal responsibility
within IEEE in order to help ensure SMC’s and IEEE’s
long-term financially viability.
If
you ever have any questions or problems, please feel free
to contact me anytime!
Dr.
Michael H. Smith
IEEE SMC President
m.h.smith@ieee.org
May 2003
