Public Architects Committee

I found it very interesting that at the AIA & Mayor's meeting recently held that AIA's EVP/CEO Lakisha Ann Woods, CAE, and AIA President Kimberly Dowdell, AIA, NOMAC, led a delegation to the 92nd annual U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) June 20-23 in Kansas City, Mo., delivering the message that architects and mayors should be partners for progress. 

From a recent AIA article about this, the AIA was told by mayors they would like an architects' database to use for recruiting architects to sit on board and commissions and to help with major projects. Mayors shared that their biggest challenge in collaborating with architects is funding. AIA leaders met individually with more than 15 U.S. mayors and connected with hundreds of other municipal leaders to listen and learn of their challenges and offering solutions from the architect's perspective.

I recommend that the AIA leadership create a Public Architects membership rate specifically for those architects that work in a public agency.  Many, if not most agencies, especially at the city and county level do not pay the high annual dues.

I have been advocating for this for almost 20 years since I was involved with the older Public Architects "PIA."  The committee at that time was able to get leadership to bring it to the board in an agenda item. It died there. Seems the practitioners that make up a majority do not care so much to create a special dues structure for licensed, public architects.

I hope the current leadership takes action and follow's up to that conversation at a mayor's conference.

Link to Article:  Mayors, architects unite at U.S. Conference of Mayors | The American Institute of Architects (aia.org)

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Michael Katzin, AIA
Johns Creek, GA
Member - Johns Creek Planning Commission
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Michael,

This proposal has been the perennial white whale PAKC has been chasing for years.  The rationale that was received as to why not was that if AIA National gave a dues break for public architects, then every other interest group within AIA would be asking for the same break. One way to parse it might be if they get a dues break, membership would increase and make their goal of 100,000 members (though the current total includes Emeritus, Assoc AIA, Hon AIA, etc.).  With increased emphasis on city architects, this proposal could be a stimulus towards achieving that corporate goal.

Thanks Jim, I understand your neutral position. I was also a Public Architects Committee member and PIA chair when I was a public architect in a county government.  When I was a public architect, in architecture practice and now in retirement. I still carry the passion and torch for this issue when and where I can.  It is because I believe AIA member public architects can significantly improve public sector development by being inside a public client's organization and being able to impact and lead capital program decisions and capital projects.

In respect to history, I attached a PDF to share some history from almost 25 years ago.  I hope anyone who reads this takes a look. It is a briefing to the AIA execs in 2001 during a Grass Roots to John Anderson who was President at the time. These issues are still applicable. The question is if AIA wants to solve this and if they do, when and how AIA initiates a process that solves the concerns expressed then and now.

So, if not now - when? The mayor's connection can be the spark. This issue merits AIA national leadership consideration and action to follow-up with actionable effort with the city mayors and I would add county commissioners as well. The Public Architect's and interested members should back check in the near future how AIA's EVP/CEO Lakisha Ann Woods, and AIA President Kimberly Dowd really do reach out and start a collaborate with the mayors.

Just sharing my passion for this topic,

Michael

Attachment(s)

2-16 PA PIA AIA Exec Brief.pdf   386 KB 1 version

Good discussion and I have to agree in a number of ways. I spent nearly all of my career working in-house for public sector. It was a fight every year to justify not only the membership cost, but the fact of being a member of AIA at all.

1. While I'd love to see a discounted rate for public architects, we already are seen as second-class architects by many of those in traditional practice and somewhat by AIA itself. We need to raise the value of public architects both to our owners, AIA, and those that work for us/with us in our public roles, not continue to offer avenues to keep us seen as "less-thans."
2. We always kept an eye on the membership cost of other professionals and what their dues were in our institutions. What were the CPA/accountant asking to have paid? Attorneys? Media and marketing folks? Memberships in your local civic organizations? We didn't try to get our institution to pay for everything, showing that we were willing to share the burden. I'd pay for local conferences myself, or always look for free opportunities. In the broad, large budgets of our institutions, the delta often wasn't much difference, if any.
3. We had to find value to the institution in our AIA membership. We had access to AIA Contract Documents and forms at a discounted rate.  Yes, even if your institution was using custom drafted agreements, there were many other forms that we could use on smaller, or internal projects. AIA provided us access to many other architects in our community that were the firms that we selected for our projects and built a relationship with before selections.  How much did we save by not having claims and lawsuits, by better performance, by being seen as a desirable client? Hard to tell, but it didn't take much to offset any dues differential. (our long term and immediate goal was to move our institution to using AIA standard agreements, even if heavily edited, for all of our own projects because they offered a complete range of documents and agreements for our projects, were court tested, etc.). AIA required continuing education which we could claim enhanced our professional staff knowledge, kept it current, etc.  
4. As a longer view, all of us participate in rewriting our job descriptions or annual reviews sooner or later. When we had that opportunity, we'd sure try to insert requirements for continuing professional education, developing and maintaining connections with local architects and the industry, etc. HR liked this because it showed "professionalism" for their in-house staffs. If you are a registrant working in-house and your state requires continuing education, does your institution have to pay for your continuing ed? We can find a lot of continuing ed for no cost. Once those kinds of requirements appear in job reviews and/or job descriptions, it's easier to justify the membership cost as a cost of meeting my annual performance goals. 
5. If we all public sector architects want to help each other, it may be better that rather than trying to figure out how to get a discounted membership rate that we collectively develop a series of supporting talking points, the cost-benefit analysis that we can use and share with our institutions to support our memberships.

Having served in federal service with the US General Services Administration for 40 plus years, I can relate to Mr. Katzin's frustrations on the institute's failure to acknowledge the potential to gain thousands of new members who are currently working as public architects in government agencies whether they be federal, state or local.  In my former agency, dues for architects' professional organizations are forbidden to be paid with taxpayer dollars expect for rare occasions or key individuals.  Thus, public architects are forced to pay the high individual membership fees but do not benefit from the services that AIA offers that are catered more toward private sector business and professional concerns.  Many other professional organizations offer limited group memberships or reduced cost memberships for their government professional members.  Why not AIA?     

I strongly support National President Kimberly Dowdell's efforts to get mayors to engage and understand the benefits of having professional architects as advisors on their staffs.  It would be a shame if those same architects cannot take full advantage of AIA membership. 

Michael,

I totally agree that there should be a special rate and I also think that Government Architect and Architect working for the Ower should be an option on every registration or survey the AIA creates for its members. There are many architects that work for the State of TN and only a very small fraction are AIA members. This was also true when I worked for Vanderbilt University. I think we would all agree that have architects that work for private and public owners is a benefit to the profession. 

Michael, thank you for this post and this should be taken under consideration by the AIA. As a public architect, the County does not pay for my license renewal even though I stamp and seal for them, does not pay for my AIA renewal and for many of the years working here has only paid small amounts to when I attend an AIA conference. I value my position and the work I do for the County but a reduced rate from the AIA would be greater incentive for more architects to work for local and public agencies. The wages are usually lower than the private sector.

Michael, thank you starting this discussion which is very important. Over the years I have worked for various public agencies as an architect. I worked for a bi-state government agency that would support their staff in limited membership dues. I worked for the largest city university system which paid my AIA dues as they saw it related to my functions as a campus architect and manager of facility operations. I am currently a County Architect in my state, one of only two positions in the state. The County will not pay my license renewal fees even though I sign and seal for County in-house projects. They will not pay for my AIA membership and I have to fight to get any little money for attending a conference which is directly related to my CEUs and license renewal, which fulfills my obligations to the County. When I became County architect, I was actually looked down upon other members in my AIA local component who mostly did high end residential design. Then they saw my direct connections to the politics of the state and understanding of how state government affects all projects. As an incoming AIA State President all components in my state now see the importance. To summarize, public architects and architects working directly for local government are an asset and need to be recognized. I applaud President Kim Dowdell for putting the State and City Architect as a main topic of her agenda. It would be a minor issue if the AIA puts forth a reduced dues structure for architects directly employed by local and state governments. Honestly I can make much more in the private sector and my AIA dues would get reimbursed. Currently paying dues out of pocket, in addition to attending conference out of pocket while raising a family is not easy. The AIA should take reduced dues for public architects under consideration....but it out there to the membership first.