CAS Bylaws Proposal Not Approved by the Fellows
A majority of CAS Fellows voted in favor of proposed changes to the CAS Constitution and Bylaws to streamline the governance of the Society, however, the proposal did not achieve the necessary threshold required for approval. Constitution and Bylaws changes require an affirmative vote from 10% of the Fellows or two-thirds of the Fellows voting, whichever is greater. The results of the vote were 61% in favor and 39% opposed, with 41% of Fellows casting ballots.
The recommended Constitution and Bylaws changes were initiated by the Board’s adoption of an evolving volunteer-staff model, which included retiring the Executive Council layer of governance and its role in CAS operations, among various other changes. With plans to revise the governing documents to remove reference to Vice Presidents and the Executive Council, the Board took the opportunity to revisit the documents in totality and recommended updates to reflect current best practices in association governance. These included condensing the two documents into one set of Bylaws and replacing lengthy descriptions of specific procedures with more general language, stating that these procedures are “specified by the Board.”
With the ballot proposal falling short of approval, references to the Executive Council remain in the Constitution, which states that the Executive Council consists of the President, the President-Elect, the Vice Presidents and the Chief Staff Executive. The number and duties of Vice Presidents are determined by the Board, and the Executive Council acts on matters specifically delegated to it by the Board. Since the Bylaws proposal was not approved, the Board will take time to deliberate and determine the role of the Executive Council and Vice Presidents going forward.
“While the Executive Council cannot be sunset at this time, I am encouraged by the progress we’ve made in evolving our volunteer-staff framework with the support of volunteer leaders over the past year,” commented Jessica Leong, CAS President. “There are ample opportunities that lie ahead for building on the strong staff-volunteer partnership.”
The results of the elections for the candidates for the Board of Directors will be released as soon as all candidates have been notified of the results by the CAS President.
