I was asked about cash on hand for the LNC in back years, at the end of February. These follow. These numbers all include money being held to pay for the national convention. [There are some addenda. Todd Hagopian advises me that there is also $25,000 held in another way.]
2018 $299,980
2020 $305,939
2022 $281,537
2024 $224,471 [Addendum: +$25,000 = $249,471]
More complete comparisons have been made between 2024 and 2022, and between 2024 and 2020. All data refer to the end of February. Two numbers are of particular interest:
Relative to 2020, the previous Presidential election, our cash on hand is down by $81,468 [Addendum: – 25,000 = $56,468.]
Relative to 2020, the previous Presidential election, our convention income is down by $164,586, from $291,000 to $126,000.
Note that prior national conventions have run more or less at break-even, not exactly, while the original 2024 budget appeared to call for the convention to have a net surplus of $200,000. That $200,000 surplus does not appear to be occurring.
Todd Hagopian advises me that we have more unrestricted cash on hand than we did in either of the two prior conventions:
2/2016: $53K
2/2020: $84K
2/2024: $112K
Add also that in 2020 and 2022, the LNC had prepaid $50,000 of convention expenses as of end of February, while the comparable number for 2024 was $1,105.
That’s why cash on hand isn’t a good managerial metric aside from when you’re draining cash from a structural deficit and need to worry about paying bills. Cash in 2020 and 2022 would have been higher if bills were going unpaid.