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Allied Charities of Minnesota Newsletter |
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January/February/March
- Volume 01 Number 1/2/3 |
2000 ACM Annual Address
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Printed below and over the next several
pages is the 2000 ACM Annual Address presented by Duane Thompson, President and
King Wilson, Executive Director of Allied Charities of Minnesota on Saturday, November
18, 2000 at The 10th Annual Minnesota Lawful Gambling Convention & Expo in
Duluth:
Duane Thompson Remarks
Thank you and good morning .....
on behalf of the Board of Directors of Allied Charities of Minnesota I would
like to welcome you to the 10th Annual ACM Lawful Gambling Convention &
Expo. It is great to be back in Duluth. We hope you are enjoying
Duluth and are finding the training seminars and Expo productive.
We'd also like to thank our partners in
this industry who participated as Expo exhibitors this year ... and especially
thank those who have been with us for the past decade . . . and we have a
number of those. Their strong support and participation has helped make this
Convention & Expo a great success over the past decade.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of
Allied Charity's Minnesota Lawful Gambling Convention & Expo. This
Convention & Expo has played a significant role in the successes we have
experienced over the past 10 years by helping bring us together from all corners
of the state. This association has been the key to our success over the past
decade.
Allied Charities is the largest
charitable gambling organization in the United States. You represent over
one-half million individuals whose organizations are involved in charitable
gambling in virtually every community in Minnesota. We should be proud of
how we have been able to help our communities with our charitable gambling
proceeds... and continue the fight to keep as much of those proceeds in our
local communities as possible.
As King noted in his introduction, I
have served as president of ACM the past seven years. I will be stepping
down as president after the end of my present term. I want to thank all of you
who have made my tenure such a pleasure.
During the past seven years it has been
my privilege to serve with a very dedicated Board of Directors. During
the past decade ACM and the Board has matured. Our committee structure is
working well and the organization is running smoothly. I've said many times
before that a volunteer organization like ours is only as good as its Board ...
so it's no coincidence that we've been so successful over the years with our
tremendous Board of Directors leading the way.
Now I would like to ask the ACM Board members
to please stand-up and be recognized as I call your name - Please hold your
applause until I've introduced the entire Board:
Karen Wirkus, Climb, Inc., Inver Grove
Heights, Vice President & Region 12 Director;
Erv Bernard, Fridley Knights of Columbus,
Treasurer and Director at Large;
Karen Frericks, Schola Foundation, Mankato,
ACM Secretary and Director-at-Large;
Ken Ayers, Albert Lea Eagles, Region 10
Director;
Scott Conrad, Duluth Elks Lodge,
Director-at-Large;
Gabe Ducharme, North Country Snowmobile Club,
Bemidji, Region 2 Director;
Richard Horn, Melrose American Legion Post
101, Region 5 Director;
Tim Hunt, Alborn Sno Devils Snowmobile Club,
Director at Large;
Chuck Latta, Onamia Lions, and Region 7
Director;
Carroll Lunos, Warroad Area Community Center,
Director at Large;
Duane Lundemo, Roseau American Legion, Region
1 Director;
Bob Matson, North Suburban Youth Assn,
Roseville, and Director at Large;
Roger Olson, McLeod County Voiture 414 40/8
and At Large Director;
Myra Pearson, Bloomington Crime Prevention
Association, Region 8 Director;
Marv Reick, Courtland Lions, Region 9
Director;
Maureen Vachuska, Immaculate Conception
Church, Columbia Heights, Director at Large;
John Vaydich, Duluth Softball Players Assn, Region
3 Director;
Let's give them all a round of applause
for a job well done........(wait for applause)...... Thank you members of the
board for all of your help and work this past year. Your dedication and
hard work is very much appreciated by all here today!
I have been privileged to serve as
president of Allied Charities and for that I thank you. I hope that
whomever is elected to lead this great organization next year enjoys the
tremendous support I have enjoyed from the board and members.
Over the past decade we've faced many
challenges . . . I believe ACM has met those challenges . . . this morning I'd
like to introduce King Wilson to talk about our successes and outline what work
still needs to be done to protect our industry.
Ladies and Gentlemen, it is my pleasure
to introduce to you our executive director, King Wilson.
King Wilson Remarks
Thank you Duane. Let me begin by
congratulating and thanking Duane for his seven years of service as ACM
president. We will certainly miss his steady leadership.
I would also like to thank the entire
Allied Charities Board of Directors on a job well done -- we've made
excellent progress in the past decade under Duane's and our Board's
leadership.... It has certainly been a pleasure working with all of the
people associated with ACM over the past decade.
In the past decade Allied Charities of
Minnesota has grown from a young, fledgling organization into a strong and
vibrant statewide association committed to promoting and protecting charitable
gambling in Minnesota.
A significant reason for that growth is
this Convention & Expo. The Convention & Expo has accomplished
several things. . . it has provided an excellent opportunity for gambling
managers, CEO's, and licensed organization members to receive additional
education and training to assist in running charitable gambling operations.
The Expo also provides the opportunity for us to learn more about the supplies
and services that are available to help us in running a good charitable
gambling operation.
And lastly, the Convention & Expo
has brought charitable gambling organizations together from throughout the
state. . . which has aided in the development of a singular unified voice
for charitable gambling in Minnesota.
Before I get too far into my comments I
would like to thank Commissioner Smith for being with us last night and for
Speaker Sviggum for being with us today. We appreciate hearing their
insights and we look forward to working with them in the future.
In addition, I'd like to thank the
Gambling Control Board particularly Chair Peggy Moon, and Bernice Caruth and
the Board staff . . . and Roger Swanson and the Department of Revenue staff for
their assistance in putting together an excellent series of seminars for our
convention. We sincerely appreciate your help!
I would also like to personally thank
those who made the 2000 ACM Minnesota Lawful Gambling Convention & Expo
possible. Bob Matson, chair of the special events committee, Karen
Wirkus, chair of the education committee, Erv Bernard for coordinating the
seminar tickets, and Maureen Vachuska for handling the schedules, Scott Conrad
for working the Welcome/Information Booth, Tim Hunt for coordinating the signs,
Gabe Ducharme & Chuck Latta for coordinating the transportation, Karen
Frericks & Myra Schulte for helping with the registration booth, and Duane
Lundemo for coordinating the trade show floor .... and all of the rest of the
volunteers who helped make this possible. A special thanks to Terry
& Bob Curtis, Linda & Doug Schulte , & Sharyn Busswitz.
Again, Thanks to all of you for a job well done.
Over the past decade Allied Charities
has grown and developed as a statewide organization. We've accomplished
that through a number of different tools and membership services.
Our communications tools have been
strengthen. Our bi-monthly newsletter includes the latest information on
activity effecting our industry.
Legislative updates and special alerts
keep members up-to-date on the latest legislative actions, both state and
federal, and are used to call our members to action on specific legislative
proposals, rules or other concerns.
The Internet web page connects members
with all of the association's activities and publications, and provides links
to the latest rules and statutes and the various governmental bodies we work
with as an industry.
The ACM Hotline provides members with
the latest information on ACM activities, at the legislature, gambling control
board, and around the state.
The statewide annual meetings have gone
a long way in keeping you, our members, better informed on what's happening
with charitable gambling in Minnesota. These personal updates provide for
member feedback that begins the process for the development of our legislative
program.
Our media & public relations
efforts, ACM Fact Sheet and ACM produced video have given us the visibility and
clout to help impact our future. These efforts help keep ACM the voice of
charitable gambling in Minnesota.
Our education and training efforts have
been strengthened through the Convention & Expo and model employee
handbook. Both of these tools were developed to provide additional
assistance to our organizations in running their charitable gambling
operations.
We've also experienced a decade of
legislative accomplishments. Just to highlight a few of those . . .
our tax rates have been reduced by over $15 million dollars per year with the
refund or credit for the unsold ticket tax and the 15% reduction in our taxes
over the past three years.
Over the past decade we've worked on a
new definition of allowable expenses, increased pull-tab prize limits from $250
to $500, pushed to allow for use of cash registers and allowed payment of
combined receipts taxes as a lawful purpose. We repealed mandatory
posting, increased the number of bingo occasions to 10 per week, increased the
expense ratio for bingo from 60% to 65%, and other forms of gambling from 50%
to 55%, created lawful gambling fraud and provided for criminal penalties for
fraud, allowed for pull-tab machines to be placed in off-sale liquor
establishment, and pushed for legislation to allow an organization owning its
own premise to elect to continue paying real estate taxes and assessments as
anallowable expense.
These are just some of the highlights
of what we've been able to accomplish with our legislative agenda over the past
decade.
ACM has also been successful at the
federal level by deflecting potential problems with the federal tax
deductibility of lawful purpose contributions for federal UBIT taxes. ACM
will continue to work on permanent legislation to exempt Minnesota games from
UBIT.
ACM has also worked on the Federal
Excise tax paving the way for most licensed organizations to be exempted from
paying federal excise taxes. We believe this action resulted in an
estimated $8 million in refunds to licensed organizations and a $2 million per
year in savings in taxes paid to the federal government.
We've also seen many changes and
successes at the organizational level the past decade. Our membership has
increase from 306 licensed organizations to over 1,000 statewide. We've
developed a working committee structure within ACM to handle the various
activities of the association. An executive director was hired along with
a consultant, legal counsel, and tax counsel to assist the board with its
activities.
We established the Minnesota Charitable
Gambling Defense Fund that helped to successfully fight off the constitutional
lawsuit that threatened our industry.
We partnered with the Minnesota Council
on Compulsive Gambling to establish the very successful ACM/MCCG Annual Golf
Tournament. After seven years this event has raised $44,500 or the MCCG
Adolescent Compulsive Gambling Prevention Program.
As you can see we've made tremendous
progress these past ten years . . . but that does not mean we are satisfied
with were we are at. We still have much to accomplish.
We are continuing to make progress
towards our ultimate 25% tax reduction goal established several years ago.
We've seen our taxes reduced with the refund on the unsold ticket tax.... and
three successive 5% reductions in the past three legislative sessions. So
incrementally . . . we are moving forward having achieved 15% of the 25% goal.
But in real dollars that's $15 million
more we are now able to put back directly into our communities. We still
need an additional 10% reduction in our present tax rates just to get us back
into line with other states' charitable gambling tax rates.
In addition to the tax issue, ACM
worked this past session to pass legislation creating lawful gambling fraud and
criminal penalties for fraud.
It is our belief that for the very
small percentage of people who abuse the system .... increasing the
criminal sanctions like we did last session is a much more effective way of
dealing with this issue rather than the 17 pages of proposed rules that are
still under consideration.
We believe the new criminal fraud
sanctions will go a long way to deter those who would abuse our system.
ACM also sponsored legislation to allow
for organizations owning its own premise to elect to continue paying real
estate taxes and assessments as a lawful purpose or pay itself up to $1,000 per
month for the use of its premises for lawful gambling as an allowable expense.
We also worked to require a trade area
defined by a city to include contiguous townships as well as each contiguous
city.
At our annual meeting yesterday, you...
the members of ACM, ratified a recommendation by the Board to ask for the
remaining 10% across the board tax reduction for charitable gambling.
That again will be a major thrust of our legislative program for this coming
session. But ... in order for us to succeed, we again need your help.
The tax relief we have been able to
obtain would not have happened without your willingness to contact your local
legislators and explain to them why you thought our taxes were unfair. If
we are going to be successful in the 2001 session, we'll all need to re-double
our efforts for the coming session.
Our efforts have paid dividends to date
. . . so please keep up the effort.
The extra $15 million annual tax
reductions we've received to-date goes directly back into our communities for
our programs and community efforts.... let's never lose sight of that.
An additional 10% tax reduction for us
would mean an added $6 million directly back into our communities. We
believe these funds are worth fighting for and will continue that fight until
we succeed! If we all work together towards our goal it can and will
happen. Our tax relief effort has to start at the grassroots level with
you and your recipient organizations .... and it must start soon. When
you get home ... ask your local legislators to attend your organization's
meeting and explain to them what this tax relief will mean to their community.
If they can't make it to your meeting .... arrange a time to meet with them
with several of your members to talk with them about charitable gambling and
our tax situation. Anything you can do at the grassroots level makes our job
that much easier and productive in St. Paul. And don't forget to ask your
locallegislators if they would also be willing to co-author legislation to
reduce our taxes.
The bottom line is that you must start
now to ask your legislator for help. The session begins the first week in
January so time is crucial.
We also plan to hold Governor Venture
to his promise to reform the tax system. There is no more onerous or
unfair tax than the state's charitable gambling taxes . . . and we hope to work
with Commissioner Smith and the Governor to come up with a fair and equitable
tax system for charitable gambling. If indeed they are looking at tax
reform to create a system that is 1 based on fairness, 2 is simpler, and
3 people are in control - our current charitable tax system, which is none of
those, should be near the top the list.
Our industry continues to be strong and
viable ... but we must continue to work to keep it that way ... we need
to be ever vigilant ..... we need to be ready to fight harmful changes and
fight to make the changes we need to remain strong and viable into the next
decade and beyond.
I want to thank all of you for
attending our 10th Annual ACM Lawful Gambling Convention & Expo. We
trust it has been a good experience and you have learned more about our
industry ....... and, always remember ....if we all work together we can and
will achieve our goals!! Thank you.