STEWARDSHIP REPORT 2025
STEWARDSHIP REPORT 2025
2025 was the year that the Protect Public Funds Initiative took flight! Imagined at the 2024 strategic planning session, the wheels were put on this vehicle for change in 2025.
Polco Phase II started to build off the initial data collection efforts of the prior year.
Actum was contracted by the coalition to assist with public affairs and media efforts.
Conversations started with Beacon Economics to produce The Cost of Claims: What It Means for California Communities, a statewide analysis translating CAJPA’s data into clear, relatable insights on how rising liability costs impact local government and taxpayers.
Discussions were elevated in the State Capitol by a coalition led by CAJPA with key legislators and leadership on the need for real tort reform.
This “big lift” initiative was in addition to CAJPA’s continued focus on supporting its three pillars – Accreditation, Professional Development, and Advocacy.
In June 2025, the CAJPA Board of Directors held its annual strategic planning session. The session was facilitated by Jim Delizia. The plan developed was for 2025-2028. Long-term goals included:
• Advocacy
• Education
• Accreditation
• Organizational Development
Enhanced Advocacy/influence is a top priority for CAJPA leadership. The goal is to have CAJPA recognized as the leading authority on public entity risk pooling. The organization wants to shape legislation and regulatory policy impacting JPAs. Leading the call for meaningful tort reform for public agencies is crucial.
Evaluating our Education Model (content and delivery and California-focused) remained a key priority in 2025. The Professional Development Committee and staff were charged with developing an overall education strategy for CAJPA and reporting out at the 2026 Strategic Planning session. The Board suggested developing a membership survey to better understand the need for content and delivery preferences as the organization pursues the overall vision of providing professional development opportunities that serves our diverse membership.
CAJPA’s Accreditation Program is driven by the purpose of being seen as essential to pool credibility and performance. CAJPA’s goal in this program is to ensure standards are viewed as practical and relevant to the diverse operations of risk-sharing pools, and focused on continuous learning. The Board is also focused on ensuring the accreditation experience is as “user friendly” as possible for both new and renewing pools.
Organizational priority was to accelerate the staff leadership initiative forward with established steps and a timeline. A review of CAJPA’s governance and committee structure was also identified as a priority. These strategic priorities have guided CAJPA’s 2025 initiatives and shaped the ongoing delivery of its core member benefits
LEADERSHIP, ASSOCIATION STAFF, AND CONSULTANTS
The Board of Directors for 2025 was:
Marinda Griese, President
Dave George, Vice President
Cindy Wilkerson, Treasurer
Beth Lyons, Secretary
Amy Conley, Director
Robert Greenfield, Director
Nikki Salas, Director
Brooks Rice, Director
Mike Pott, Director
CAJPA is supported by an association management team provided by Smith Moore & Associates (SMA).
CAJPA and SMA’s partnership started in 2011. CAJPA’s professional team includes:
Catherine Smith, Executive Director
Carmen Berry, Deputy Executive Director
Teri Anticevich, Conference Director
Audie Whitt, Communications Director
Melissa Feltz, Account Coordinator
Paul George, Account Coordinator (started in June)
Maggie Maue, Account Assistant (started in April)
Beth Ramirez, Sponsorship and Exhibitor Coordinator
Leo Orozco/Krunal Sagar, Accounting/Audit Prep
Jerry Mayfield, IT & Communications Coordinator
Faith Borges serves as the Legislative Advocate.
In 2025, CAJPA issued an RFP for general counsel with the retirement of current counsel David McMurchie. The final selection for new legal counsel was Joshua Horowitz with BKS Law.
FINANCIAL PICTURE
Clean 2024 Audit – completed in 2025.
2025 Unaudited
Assets/Reserves: $816,089 (LAIF and Money Market)
Revenues/Expenditures: $1,662,495/$1,450,310
Budget v. Actual
Income: 119%
Expenses: 113%
COMMITTEES
Accreditation
Number of New Accreditations: 0
Number of Re-Accreditations: 18
The Accreditation Committee continues to improve the standards and oversee a thriving program. The Accreditation Committee held its first strategic planning meeting in December 2025 and developed an action plan on how to improve the accreditation experience.
Communications 1
The Communications Committee, under the leadership of Lois Gormley, continues to look for opportunities to expand communications with members and establish communication channels
Technology
In partnership with the Finance Committee, the Technology Committee (comprised of both the Best Practices and Member Education Sub-Committees) hosted a successful Spring Summit in Sacramento (see Conference, Events and Other Educational Offerings) and began planning for the 2026 Spring Summit. The Technology Member Education SubCommittee directed content for two episodes of the CAJPA Cast’s AI Series, Establishing and Refining AI Policy in the Pooling Industry and AI Prompting, Privacy, and Accuracy, and members of both SubCommittees participated as guests in each episode as well.
Finance
The Finance Committee, in partnership with the Technology Committee, held a successful Spring planning for the 2026 Spring Summit. In addition, the
Number of AMICUS Briefs Reviewed: 9
The Legal Affairs Committee (LAC) reviews requests for amicus support from California public agencies and determines what type of support, if any, CAJPA should provide. It also compiles a year in review case law update for the annual conference and organizes a speaking session on the topic at the conference. The Legal Affairs Committee is chaired by Mike Pott (PRISM).
Legislative Committee
2025 was the first year of a two-year session. The Legislative Committee focused on bills that would impact the financial health, operations, or governance of public risk pools and, by extension, the ability of the member local agencies to serve their constituents. The committee is made up of members of the five subcommittees: JPA, Loss Control, Workers’ Compensation, Tort & Liability (TL), and Healthcare. Robin Flint serves as the CAJPA Legislative Chair, with Jackie Miller serving as the Vice Chair. Legislative Advocate Faith Borges supports the committee along with CAJPA staff. Through the CAJPA Weekly and emails, staff kept CAJPA members informed about key bills and engaged them in grassroots advocacy when needed. One of the goals going into 2025 was enhanced “offensive advocacy,” which was the number one priority set by the Board at the June 2024 planning session. The Committee looks at tort reform, public entity liability, the impact of AB 218, and nuclear verdicts.
CAJPA continues to support the Legislative Data Portal by updating the membership in each legislative district every two years. CAJPA staff collects data from all members to determine how many people CAJPA represents in each legislative district. This data includes pool employees and their members' employees. This data is used by Faith as well as shared during legislative visits scheduled during LAD. One of CAJPA’s goals continues to be to increase the number of CAJPA members who provide their data for this portal.
Professional Development
The Professional Development Committee continues to improve and evaluate CAJPA’s educational content and delivery methods to determine how CAJPA can provide the most educational value to membership. The Committee created and sent a survey to membership toward the end of the year to get their perspective on how much value they get from our current educational offerings, which will be pivotal for shaping how the Committee moves forward in 2026. The Committee reviewed applications and approved recipients for both the John Keenan and Joseph Farrell scholarships. In addition, they reviewed and approved the “Call to Sessions” breakout session selections for the 2025 Fall Conference.
The Annual Conference Sub-Committee met regularly throughout the year and took charge of planning the majority of the Conference program, which allowed the Professional Development Committee to focus on expanding CAJPA’s educational offerings.
CONFERENCE, EVENTS AND OTHER EDUCATIONAL OFFERINGS
Spring Finance, Technology & HR Workshop
Number of Attendees:
107
Number of sponsors: 9 Net Revenue: $7,812
The CAJPA Spring Summit was held on May 19 – May 20, 2025, at the DoubleTree in Sacramento, CA. The Summit brought together risk-sharing pools’ finance, HR, and technology experts to learn the latest best practices and emerging issues. The venue was well received and will once again serve as the host location for the 2026 Spring Summit.
Pooling Academy
Number of CAJPA Learners: 368 (across 23 CAJPA pools)
CAJPA is one of three founding organizations supporting the Pooling Academy. CAJPA, AGRiP, and NLC-RISC staff meet regularly to go over content, delivery, marketing strategies, and participation numbers. Pooling Academy is an all-online training platform that includes learning paths (finance and member services) as well as Pooling Basics, which is an eight-course learning path that provides foundational information about various aspects of pooling.
Annual Conference
The 2025 annual conference was held September 16 – 19, 2025, in Monterey at the Monterey Conference Center. This change in location, after decades of being in South Lake Tahoe, was exciting and provided its own set of challenges to navigate. Overall, the conference was a big success, with attendees enjoying the new location. The sessions were current and engaging, the keynotes inspiring, and the exhibit hall bustling with services, products, and relationship building.
The conference theme was “CAJPA 2025: Anchoring Tomorrow’s Success.” The conference continued to offer tracks to help attendees select sessions. The opening keynote was Dr. Chris Thornberg from Beacon Economics, and the conference closed with Dr. Brandie Nonnecke, Director of CITRIS Policy Lab.
Number of total attendees: 947
Number of exhibitors: 82 (including sponsor exhibit booths)
Number of sponsors: 24
Total revenues: $833,900
Total expenses: $493,133
Net Revenue: $340,767
For 2026, CAJPA will return to the Tahoe Blue Event Center in South Lake Tahoe!
LITL
Number of Attendees
February 6 (virtual): 54
April 23 (in person): 44
May 7 (virtual): 64
June 5 (virtual): 35
July 9 (in person): 37
November 6 (virtual): 74
Number of sponsors
February 6 (virtual): 0
April 23 (in person): 2
May 7 (virtual): 0
June 5 (virtual): 0
July 9 (in person): 1
November 6 (virtual): 0
Net Revenue: $3,223
CAJPA held six LITL Programs in 2024, four virtual and two in person. The Board also made the decision at the 2023 strategic planning meeting to no longer charge members for virtual LITL Programs, so we did see a slight revenue decrease in 2024.
Legislative Action Day
In 2025, CAJPA hosted a Legislative Action Day (LAD) on April 3, 2025, at the New Car Dealers Association. In addition to presentations by Legislative Advocate Faith Borges and Legislative Committee Chair Robin Flint, Mike Fine, Fiscal Crisis Management Assistance Team (FCMAT), reviewed their recently released report titled, “Childhood Sexual Assault: Fiscal Implications for Public Agencies.” Following the morning presentations, attendees participated in legislative visits coordinated by CAJPA staff.
LAD is a member benefit and there is no charge to attend for CAJPA members or members of their pools.
Risk Management Practitioner (RMP)
CAJPA is a supporter of the Risk Management Practitioner Program (RMP), and staff continue to attend its meetings and provide support as needed. The program provides a certificate, has received strong reviews, and offers networking opportunities.
Membership
CAJPA's membership remains strong with the following retention rates:
(86 of 90 JPA members)
(68 of 74 Associate members)
Member Retention Rate:
(3 of 3 Affiliate members)
CONCLUSION
This stewardship report highlights CAJPA’s accomplishments in 2025 and reflects the organization’s continued role as the voice of California’s public entity risk-sharing pools. CAJPA continues to lead with purpose in California by elevating the voice of our members at the State Capital while also expanding its national connections through strengthened collaboration with the Association of Governmental Risk Pools (AGRiP) and NLC-RISC.
CAJPA’s foundation remains strong, anchored by dedicated leadership, engaged volunteers, and committed staff. Three key indicators of a successful association—fiscal stability, membership retention, and member participation—continue to demonstrate the organization’s strength.
• CAJPA maintained a clean annual audit and remains financially secure.
• Membership retention remained strong, with 96% of Regular Members and 92% of Associate Members renewing their commitment.
• Member engagement continued across CAJPA’s conferences, programs, workshops, and committee activities.
Participation in CAJPA offerings—including the annual conference, LITL programs, and spring workshop— continued to exceed expectations. Guided by the Board, CAJPA is also advancing efforts to address litigation, claims, coverage, and judgments that significantly affect members and the public entities they serve.
