OPSEU/SEFPO 2025 Budget Information

Video Transcript

Hello and thank you for joining me. My name is Laurie Nancekivell and I’m your First Vice-President/Treasurer.

Before we get into the budget process, I want to acknowledge you for being leaders in our union, in your workplaces, and in your communities.

Together, we’re strengthening our membership to organize, to push back against bad bosses and the government, and to make peoples’ lives better.

As your First Vice-President/Treasurer, I implemented an Activist Budget that will be continuing into 2025.

The Activist Budget facilitates meaningful participation from member leaders and groups, providing a process for member groups to put forward budget proposals for consideration of the Executive Board.

An Activist Budget also provides the ability for the Executive Board to make informed decisions regarding OPSEU/SEFPO’s resources and a draft budget that would then go to Convention.

Many of you have been involved in this process before – either in building the 2023 or the 2024 draft budgets… or maybe both!

You’ll likely recall that we asked member group leaders to develop budget requests that met their members’ strategic goals for the year.

This year is no different.

This is your opportunity to think ahead. What would your group like to accomplish in 2025? What are your goals? What events or activities will best meet these goals?

We’re asking you to anticipate and to map out – as much as possible – your group’s needs for the entirety of 2025.

When we look ahead at the coming year, it lessens the requests that are needed on the Contingency Fund.

But of course, we understand that we will continue to have issues that we can’t anticipate – such as new legislation or actions by government or employers – and we still need a Contingency Fund to cover these types of related expenses.

As mentioned, your Executive Board will consider requests together to ensure that the 2025 draft budget works towards our Union’s strategic goals, giving due consideration to the needs of the whole union.

I will now give an overview of the timeline in building 2025’s draft budget.

In August and September, staff assigned to each member group will input into the draft budget the group’s quarterly meetings and any items that are mandated to be covered.

In this time frame, member groups should review their strategic goals for 2025 and determine the events or activities that will best meet these goals.

In thinking through these events and activities, you may also wish to prioritize the events, for the Executive Board’s consideration. If your group wishes to prioritize these proposals, please ensure that you advise the staff working with to your group.

Staff will input each group’s proposals into budget proposal templates. At the request of OPSEU/SEFPO members, we introduced a budget proposal template process last year. And we have only streamlined it further this year.

In order for staff to complete the template for each of your group’s budget proposals, they will need standard information that is on all proposals, such as:

• The name of the proposal;
• The rationale for the requested event or activity; so that’s really a narrative or an explanation of what the group is requesting and why they’re requesting it;
• The length of the proposed date of the event and activity;
• Number of meetings;
• Is it hybrid or in-person or virtual;
• The number of members attending;
• And items such as do you require a meeting room space;
• Will there be Professional Services.

The rationale is key in letting Board members to understand the purpose of the request and to know and understand the event and the request, beyond numbers on a page. If your group requires assistance in writing the rationale, please reach out to your staff member.

So again, if your group wishes to prioritize the proposals, please ensure that you advise your assigned staff member of the prioritization.

And also remember that your group does not need to propose quarterly meetings or events that are already in policy. Staff will be putting those things in already into the draft budget.

I encourage you to work with your assigned staff to come up with the necessary information for your budget proposals. Staff are there to help!

The deadline for member groups to provide their budget proposals, including the rationale, to staff is September 27^th. Okay, so by September 27^th, your group needs to provide all of the information, including the rationale, to your staff.

The next step of the budget building process is that staff will input the member group requests information into the budget templates. So you can expect that staff might need to reach out and ask some questions or clarification in this time.

Due to this back and forth, if you have the ability to provide this information to your staff in advance of the deadline, that is ideal and would be appreciated, where possible. This will allow staff to be able to input the information into the budget templates even earlier.

Staff will complete inputting the proposals into the templates by October 11^th.

Of course, as said, if your group provided information sooner, then that could be implemented sooner, as well.

Between October 7^th and October 18^th, staff will coordinate with member groups to ensure that they have accurately captured the group’s budget proposal. This will allow for any errors to be caught in advance of this going to the Executive Board.

Okay, so between October 7^th and 18^th (or earlier, depending on when you provide information to staff), they will reach out to the member groups to ensure that what they have inputted accurately captures what the group has asked for in the budget proposal.

Member groups’ budget proposals will be finalized, having been reviewed and approved by each group, by October 18^th. Okay, October 18^th is that deadline.

The draft budget, and the budget proposals, will then be provided to the Executive Board.

The Executive Committee’s budget meeting will be held on November 14^th and a second one on November 19^th.

The Executive Board’s budget meeting is held on November 20^th and 21^st.

At these meetings, the Executive Board will build the 2025 draft budget.

When the Executive Board meeting has concluded, the draft budget will be created and each member group will be advised of the events or activities that the Executive Board has included into the 2025 draft budget.

So this is the same process as last year. At the conclusion of the meeting, the information will be pooled together and member groups will be informed of what’s been included and not included in the 2025 draft budget.

The last step of the process is that we bring the draft budget to Convention for approval.

So that’s the process!

I realize it’s a lot of information to take in at once though.

My office will email your group a link to this video as well as an outline of the information provided.

If there are any questions, please work with your assigned staff but also know that I’m here for any support required.

If there are bumps along the way, please write to me and my office so that we can smooth out any of these bumps and have your items addressed.

Your first point of contact is your assigned staff member but I am here as well for any other help that is required.

I look forward to seeing what you have in store for 2025!