fiscal year and association year

[Guest Marti]

Our organization has requested the fiscal year  as specified in the bylaws to change from Mar 1 - end of Feb to a calendar year of Jan 1 - Dec 31.  The association year is specified in the bylaws as also Mar 1 - end of Feb. The question asked was "Is the fiscal year and the Association year the same thing?"  My thought are since the bylaws specify a fiscal year and an Association year, then they are not the same but I would like a second opinion. 

 

[Hieu H. Huynh]

The bylaws could be amended to address your question.

[Gary Novosielski]

19 minutes ago, Guest Marti said:

Our organization has requested the fiscal year  as specified in the bylaws to change from Mar 1 - end of Feb to a calendar year of Jan 1 - Dec 31.  The association year is specified in the bylaws as also Mar 1 - end of Feb. The question asked was "Is the fiscal year and the Association year the same thing?"  My thought are since the bylaws specify a fiscal year and an Association year, then they are not the same but I would like a second opinion. 

 

I tend to agree that having different titles suggests that they are not the same thing.  But since, until now, they have run concurrently, the question of how they might differ may never have come up.

Besides the definitions, are the two types of year referred to anywhere else in the bylaws?  What do they apply to?  Would an out-of-sync condition between them cause any foreseeable side-effects that could be a problem?  The unforeseeable ones could be even more of a problem but by their nature they are unforeseeable.

If you want to duck the issue at this time, and not decide the question of whether they are the same, you can kick the can down the road by amending both of them to the new time frame--unless your research shows that would be even more of a problem for some reason.

It's something that would probably benefit from lively debate among the membership.  It is said that n-1 heads are better than one, unless n = 1.