I submit this report to the DPA membership as my last act as Treasurer of the DPA. I'd like to thank AAPG staff, specifically Norma Newby, Bryan Haws and Jody Cox, for their assistance through the last two years. Also, I'd like to thank Debbie Osborne for her willingness to stand for the position as she is your incoming DPA Treasurer.

The DPA investment portfolio, which is part of the greater AAPG investment portfolio, remains solid. As it is part of the National AAPG portfolio, we just basically "ride along" and do not have direct control of the types of investments, etc. As of February 2012 the fair market value of the investment portfolio was approximately $630,000 … and that is a good thing.

As for our yearly budget, we have a different story to tell. The last five or so years the DPA yearly income versus expenses has been typically $40,000 to $70,000 in the hole. Over this period, this has not been a surprise and the yearly budget has typically been passed and accepted as a deficit budget; fully aware that going into the coming year, income would be significantly under expenses. There are a few reasons for that. Membership (from a purely financial perspective, read: income) in DPA has been lessening. Older members are retiring and in some cases dropping membership and we are not finding the new members to take their places. Expenses are on the rise. We all know that based on our own personal lives and/or our companies' expenses. DPA is not immune from rising prices. In 2006, the DPA began its program of partially funding the GEO-DC office and the $60,000 (initially $50,000 and rose to $60,000 in 2009) is a substantial hit to the DPA bottom line.

This is not sustainable. As discussed above, we have a nest egg of $630,000. And, again … that's a good thing. But, if we continue running such yearly deficits we will erase that nest egg in roughly 12 years.

Given that the GEO-DC office was largely unstaffed (as David Curtis is now the executive Director of AAPG), the DPA's portion of the office expenses were prorated, and therefore, we were closer to balanced budget this past fiscal year that we had been for some time.

So, what is the answer to DPA's budgetary issues? Good question. If we are going to work on the issue from the income side, we need to increase membership. Anyone reading this column can help to that end. We all have colleagues that can and likely should join the DPA. We need to get them into the DPA fold. From the expense side we've done a bit to work on that, including assessing expenses related to DPA's meetings at ACE each year.

Again, thanks for the opportunity to serve the DPA as Treasurer the last two years.