Budget

The following yearly budget is currently recommended for the Journal, although it is open to negotiation with each new editorial staff:

 1. funds for the editor performing editorial functions
 2. funds for the editorial assistant
 3. funds for the editor and editorial board acting on papers
 4. funds for postage, copying, supplies

The editor is responsible for running the Journal, handling high-level relations with the publisher, and acting on a subset of submitted manuscripts. Because a small number of manuscripts are obviously not publishable for a variety of reasons, the editor may wish to reject these outright without review. The number of reviewable papers that the editor handles is a free parameter. Ideally, though, the editor should handle roughly the same number of reviewable papers as a board member. The rationale is that anyone acting on a paper should be an expert in the area, at least as often as is possible. Again, the goal is to optimize the fit between action editors and manuscripts, as discussed earlier. Thus, papers falling into the editor's area of expertise should occur about as often as papers falling into a board member's area of expertise. Should the editor wish to handle a higher proportion of the manuscripts, this possibility could be discussed with the governing board at the time of the editor's appointment.

Given that the Journal currently receives about 60 submissions a year, this means that the editor and each of 12-15 action editors handles about 4-5 manuscripts per year. The funds for acting on papers are to be divided proportionally over the action editors as a function of the number of manuscripts that each one handles. Those action editors who handle many manuscripts will be paid more than those who handle a few. At this time, we anticipate that the average pay for handling a manuscript will be $100 per manuscript. We very much hope to see the number of submissions to the Journal increase markedly once we adopt the new model. Should this occur, we may need to adjust the budget to reflect the additional work that the editorial staff performs.