Guest Post by Alvin Jin
The Democratic Executive Committee (DEC) serves as the Democratic Party in Hillsborough County and works to elect Democratic candidates and improve the party. As a member of the DEC, I want to provide support but I have serious concerns with how we are spending money to accomplish our goals. During 2016, the Hillsborough DEC raised nearly $210,000 in donations and then spent over half of that money raised, $119,000, in contributions to candidates. I believe that the money raised by the DEC in 2018 can be used more effectively. I suggest a Field Director be hired whose role is to organize and coordinate all field efforts for the 2018 election cycle.
As President of the Hillsborough County Young Democrats, I serve on the Steering Committee of the DEC, which helps to set the overall strategy of the party. In the past meeting of this committee, a budget for 2018 was proposed and approved that allocates $90,000 — nearly half of the total budget — in contributions to candidates. I voiced my objections and voted against this budget because I believe there are better ways to spend this money, specifically hiring a Field Director. As the midterm election date nears, we are going to see a major influx in people who want to join the DEC and help support our efforts, leading to more work. New members will need to be trained, constituent databases updated, and volunteers for internal DEC events coordinated concurrent with campaign events. If people do not feel they are effectively helping the Democratic cause, we will lose them as volunteers. A full-time Field Director can do the essential job of organizing and effectively utilizing the volunteer labor from DEC members. If we continue to run the DEC as usual, we risk losing talented people who want to volunteer their time to help make Hillsborough County a great place to live.
The 2018 budget will need approval by the general body of the DEC. If the budget is brought to the DEC at the meeting in April, I will propose an amendment to do the following:
Allocate $25,000 for salary and benefits to hire a Field Director, who would be responsible for coordinating and organizing field efforts of the Hillsborough County DEC during the 2018 election. This contract would run from June 25th, 2018 to November 9th, 2018.
I understand that this is not a small amount of the budget that I am requesting, but we can reallocate that amount from candidate contributions. Even after reallocating funds for a Field Director salary, donations to candidates would still be our largest single expenditure (see proposed budget summary with and without the amendment below). Candidate contributions are great for influencing a single race, but we need to care about more than just winning one race in one election cycle. A Field Director would not only help a given candidate, but also utilize the strengths and passion of the DEC members to make an impact on the races in Hillsborough County. Equally important, hiring a Field Director for this 2018 election helps us set the framework for a unified infrastructure, one that can effectively contact, recruit, and learn from new members not only during this election season, but year after year. If you support this initiative, I invite you to come to the DEC meeting this Monday, April 16th and future meetings to help shape how the party is run during this election and into the future.
Alvin Jin, Ph.D.
President
Hillsborough County Young Democrats