Statement from the Treasurer
It's my pleasure to announce that SIGMOD is financially strong. Our
conference is the best in the field technically. This research
excellence has contributed to financial health, enabling the
conference to continue to generate more than enough revenue to cover
its expenses. SIGMOD '98 took in approximately $25K more than it cost
to produce.
The SIGMOD fiscal year (FY) 2000 runs from July 1, 1999 to June
30, 2000. The SIGMOD FY 2000 budget has been prepared, and includes
the following highlights. The fund balance estimated for the beginning
of the year is $454K. The minimum fund balance required by ACM for
SIGMOD is $112K. Since our fund balance is higher then necessary, we
are budgeting in a lower safety factor for the SIGMOD '99 conference,
reducing the registration fee by approximately $50. We plan to
continue this for future conferences. In addition, we are spending
$40K on the SIGMOD Anthology, a compendium of all prior proceedings of
SIGMOD and many other valuable publications on CD (and now
DVD!). We'll spend $13K on the SIGMOD '99 DiSC compilation CD. These
are approximately the same amounts spent in FY 1999. Another $5K will
be spent on 10 $500 student scholarships to SIGMOD '99. The expected
fund balance at the end of FY 2000 is $400K. Our FY 2000 revenue is
estimated to be $298K, and estimated expenses are $352K. Other than
special projects, SIGMOD is essentially breaking even.
We believe that the SIGMOD anthology and DiSC will be a great
benefit to members of SIGMOD and to the database research community as
a whole. Spending part of our fund balance to create them is well
worth it. SIGMOD members have asked for a lower conference
registration fee, and we responded.
As with the other SIGs and with ACM in general, SIGMOD has been
slowly losing members (though at a smaller rate than almost all the
other SIGs). This might raise a concern with respect to our financial
health in the long term. Over the short term, declining membership is
not a serious financial problem, because membership dues are a small
part of our revenue, and don't fully cover the cost of services
provided to members. The conference is quite healthy, and it is our
major source of income. Fortunately, we recently added over 200 new
members through a promotion at SIGMOD '98, where registrants who were
not members could join SIGMOD at no charge. This has kept our total
membership numbers level this year. We are initiating a student
membership drive this spring to try to bring in new members, and will
continue the membership promotion associated with the conference. This
should stabilize our membership numbers and hopefully make them
grow. Our hope is that a healthy membership will mean a robust
conference and a strong database research community for the future.
Eric N. Hanson
Treasurer, ACM SIGMOD
