The Arkansas Tennis Association under the direction of Leslie Pfeiffer ranks last in USTA membership of the Southern Section. At a recent Southern Sectional meeting, the ATA produced the lowest number of USTA members among the 9 state region. In fact the ATA had a decline in membership of almost 8% (Adults-down 2%,Juniors-down 20%), while the Executive Director Leslie Pfeiffer has continued to pay herself almost $90,000 and consumed almost 12% of the total ATA budget (highest among the 9-state Southern Section).
State.Total USTA Mbrs..Adults...Jrs,...Growth%
1.GA.......55,498......40,861..14,587...-0.44%
2.NC.......35,224......25,790...9,371...+5.46%
3.SC.......24,417......19,657...4,727...+0.31%
4.LA.......14,831......11,677...3,136...+2.74%
5.AL.......14,394......10,658...3,714...+3.03%
6.TN.......13,360.......8,933...4,346...+2.25%
7.MS.......12,760.......9,108...3,640...+4.81%
8.KY........9,551.......6,214...3,317...+7.59%
9.AR........7,532.......5,363...2,156..(-7.94%)
(NOTE: Total Members=Adult + Jrs + Unknown Members.)
Leslie Pfeiffer, the executive director, has orchestrated an effort to deceive the USTA Arkansas tennis members by inflating the total revenue of the ATA by commingling the funds generated by the NLR Burns Park/ATA agreement and the funds generated from the USTA membership, grants, program fees. Thus, the ATA has shown a revenue increase each year, even though membership continued to decline.
Instead of using the excess revenue to promote and grow the game of tennis thru a grassroots effort of providing access to tennis courts/programs in growing communities statewide, Leslie Pfeiffer has wasted the monies by increasing her own pay and office staff including hiring children of Board members such as Joe Murphy and Randy Jackson. How many more office workers does Pfeiffer need to sit around on their rearends firing emails across Arkansas saying, "WE NEED MORE JUNIORS SINCE WE LOST 20% OF OUR JUNIOR MEMBERSHIP" or "WE ARE LAST IN ADULT MEMBERSHIP"!!!!
Recently, a growing community asked Pfeiffer for a very small grant to make their tennis courts more useful and more attractive to grow the Game of Tennis. Pfeiffer insisted that funds were low for the past 5 or so years while she had been overpaying herself $185,000 over this same period. Adults/children need tennis courts within 15 minutes of where they live, especially for afterschool junior programs. We do not need more money spent at one central location such as Burns Park and the ATA office, since not everyone statewide lives within 15 minutes of N. Little Rock.
