Last week of the Legislative Session

I wanted to pass on the latest from Trey Price, one of our Public Policy representatives in the FAR Tallahassee office. He attended every single TBRC committee meeting, diligently reviewing and analyzing each proposal coming forward. During GARD, I had the opportunity to visit one of their meetings and listen to some testimony about school vouchers so had a small glimpse at the patience required to do his job. Our entire Public Policy team is always on full alert for legal and legislative issues that directly affect members and our customers and clients. Thanks for all you do.

The TBRC finished their work and has seven amendments heading for the November ballot. You can check them all out at http://www.floridatbrc.org/. The FAR has already voted to support CP002: major property tax reform. We'll need every member working diligently to get that and several other key real estate related amendments passed. I'll have more about that effort next week.

Executive Committee responds

Major action was taken last week by the Executive Committee to respond to the lower than expected membership of the Florida Association of Realtors. While the FAR is in a strong financial position with well over $10,000,000 in reserves, it was necessary to trim our budget nearly two million dollars to stay that way and to properly manage the members assets. As I've always said, Member Services are the most important way that serve our members; we did not cut back on these tools. If you notice anything it will be that one issue of the Florida Realtor will not be published sometime in the Fall. Our incredible staff in Orlando and Tallahassee have done an incredible job in making sure that every dollar our members pay in dues is used as efficiently as possible. As we look forward to beginning work on the 2009, we'll continue to strive for better and more efficient ways to deliver our products and services. We all want to be successful.