We opened the Belleville Office with a grant from the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs in August 2009. For public knowledge the Department of Illinois graciously took on the two employees for the Belleville Office because they were losing their positions with the State of Missouri. This originally was only supposed to be an interim office until they could re-locate into a V.A. facility.

We as a Department made it clear when the downstate office exhausted the original $100,000 grant, that we would continue supporting as long as financially feasible. The membership agreed to support the downstate office at our convention in June 2009 even after the grant money was exhausted, which occurred during July 2010. We have been continuing full support for this office since that time. We have continually operated in the RED relying strictly on our reserves hoping that the incoming revenues would hopefully improve.

There was no income revenue received from fundraising operations this calendar year. There is much uncertainty with  future revenues! So the Organization must do what is fiscally feasible for the integrity and preservation of the State organization’s survival.

We are at this point are dependent  upon our reserves

We are already $54,000 in the red just on the salaries alone for the NSO program this year. We were $50,000 in the red last year. Our revenue has been on a downward spiral for the last two years and our reserves are dangerously low!   

The National Office structure is such that no funding is appreciated here in The State of IL. The Department of IL MOPH  does not know how much longer we will be able to maintain any office at this juncture.

This was a very difficult decision, but one that had to be made.

Respectfully,

Dan Finn

IL Commander