Syracuse, NY - Financial difficulties have forced the Onondaga County Bar Association to fire Executive Director Christine Gray. “We’ve just not been as diligent in our financial management as we should have been,” OCBA President Marion Hancock Fish said last week in explaining Gray’s termination. Fish blamed a drop in revenue for the cut and said a more streamlined operation...
Syracuse, NY - Financial difficulties have forced the Onondaga County Bar Association to fire Executive Director Christine Gray.
“We’ve just not been as diligent in our financial management as we should have been,” OCBA President Marion Hancock Fish said last week in explaining Gray’s termination.
Fish blamed a drop in revenue for the cut and said a more streamlined operation should work to the financial betterment of the organization. The OCBA ended 2009 with a deficit of more than $75,000 following small deficits in 2008 and 2007, she revealed.
A second employee also was let go in the recent cost-cutting move. Fish called the personnel cuts “unavoidable.”
But Fish said none of the cuts are expected to have any impact on the programs the bar association operates.
Gray, contacted at home in Pulaski last week, declined comment. She took over the executive director position in 2007 after being hired away from the Oswego County Office of Tourism and Promotion.
At the time Gray was hired, the bar association advertised the position’s salary being between $45,000 and $55,000. The association operates with a budget of about $500,000.
According to Fish, the largest part of the organization’s revenue comes from membership dues. Membership of about 1,500 has remained stable, she said.
The bar association also makes money from a Continuing Legal Education program (CLE) for lawyers but is facing more competition for those lawyers’ CLE dollars, she said. But that was not a cause for the current financial situation, she added.
The financial problem was primarily the result of the end of some state grants and the organization’s failure to adequately plan for that, Fish said. She said some income projections turned out to be “unrealistic.”
She said the bar association is continuing to provide services such as the Lawyer Referral Program which matches people with lawyers to handle specific legal needs and the Volunteer Lawyer Project, which operates an uncontested divorce clinic, neighborhood “Talk to a Lawyer” programs, an annual Elder Law Fair and services to tenants in Landlord-Tenant Court.
Fish said current staff and volunteers are currently picking up the slack from Gray’s departure. She also said no decision has yet been made about whether the executive director’s position will be refilled.
The bar association hopes to have a new plan in place by the end of the month, she said.