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History and Origins of ASSIST
- 1980-1991
by Dale Watson, Lifetime ASSIST member
The bill that rocked the industry was the collecting of sales tax. It was promoted as a temporary tax, we knew that was a lie. The legislators explained to us �It�s like the television salesman. He collects the tax and all his competitors did the same. There was no competitive advantages to either.� We tried to explain that in our business our clients had options. After the seventies of high interest rates and inflation, customers were calling us every year to ask what the increase for the next year would be. They understood we would have to raise rates. After Reagan became president inflation was brought under control, interest rates declined, there was a period of deflation. Most companies worked at the same rates for several years and were beginning to feel the need to increase their rates. Then, along comes this seven to eight present sales tax, depending where your operation was.
This had an effect on all companies. Clients decided to scale back their security, go in-house, or do away with security all together. A group of ASSIST members traveled to Austin to meet with the Comptroller�s people to explain our industry and hammer out specifics. The group included Marc Hibbs, Mark Smith, Dale Watson, Herb Kelpen, Ann Ball, Morris Covin and Bud Price. Thanks in large part to Mark Smith�s arguments and Ann�s translations, we were able to work out an agreement that companies under contract would continue for a year not charging sales tax. This saved many of the companies in the state from utter ruin.
Soon everyone was scrambling to re-write their agreements. Although sales tax was not good for the industry it did help ASSIST. We had companies joining to help in the fight. Other security associations helped with funds. After the law was passed we held seminars to explain how the new law would be implemented. We rented large movie theaters in Ft. Worth, Dallas, and San Antonio, which we filled. These seminars brought in thousands of dollars. We had structured the seminar fee as $100 for an ASSIST member and $125 non-member. We did pick up many new members. We wanted and needed those member numbers to be as high as possible for the added clout with legislators. The Board put on part of the seminar and charged a ten percent fee from the door receipts. As I recall, the Board was paid over $10,000 dollars for their participation. This revenue allowed us to pay our lobbyist�s past and present fees and catch up on other obligations. But before long we were back unable to send out a newsletter without getting donations.
In the next legislative session apathy was rampant. No one wanted to help and we could only get a handful of people at the meetings. The only thing that motivated people was a crisis. Herb was burned out and so was everyone else. I think, at that time, we had several hundred dollars left. It was decided to go to Lakeway in Austin, play golf and dissolve the Association. Being in athletics all my life, I hated to throw the towel in on anything. The night before the meeting I met with Herb and informed him that I was not going to vote to disband the Association. I felt ASSIST had done good even though it wasn�t always appreciated and it would be extremely hard to start over. I knew deep down Herb didn�t want to kill the Association but he was the one that was on the line with our lobbyist, and he was refusing to work for free. It seemed the harder we worked the deeper in the hole we got. Many felt the Association was sick and needed to be put out of its misery. The next day Herb changed his mind. This infuriated several of the other executive members, but we all remained friends.
New board members were elected for the 89-91 term. Gary Walsh became President, I became ExVP, Roland Contreras was VP and Mark Smith Secretary/Treasurer. One side note: Roland wasn�t at the convention. He was nominated, a phone call was placed, whereby he accepted the nomination and was elected VP. That�s what happened if you were willing to work. After the near collapse of the Association and a sobering evaluation of where we were, a proposal was made to bring back the chapters. We felt that disbanding the chapters had been a mistake. Instead of five executive officers trying to run everything state-wide, regional input would help to relieve the work load for all. We brought back the chapters in the Dallas and Ft. Worth and Houston areas. San Antonio followed later.
To be continued ...
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