Finance & Legal minutes: 2010-04-03

Minutes:

*Minutes of F&L “Summit”*

4/3/10, 10 am to 1 pm

Present: Aaron, Elph, Mary, Amy

At the Roadhouse over breakfast


F&L had a "summit" for three hours on a weekend so as to be able to "power
through" several agenda items that we've struggled to complete at shorter
evening meetings.



1. Agenda Review

We decided to wait until May to discuss the organization of GO files, when
Gail has started the job and we can meet with her. We can also discuss the
“Book of Mortgages” item at that time. Cher has identified a new legal
requirement, which seems to direct the Association to maintain a file copy
of every unit’s mortgage. We will need to clarify this point and then act
on it.

2. Buildings Budget Overage

Buildings went about $5000 over budget in 2009 because of fire suppression
repairs. Where should this be charged?

There is about $4,000 leftover from under-spent line items in other areas of
GO’s operating budget.

Alternatively, we could pay from the short-term Buildings Emergency Reserve
Fund with $15,000 in it currently. This fund accumulates only when
Buildings under-spends in a given year. It has a goal of accumulating
$20,000.

Should Finops spend the operating fund balance first to cover the Buildings
overage, or spend entirely from the Buildings Emergency Fund?

MONKEY: On 4/4, Amy will bring this question to Steering, as an empowered
committee, to make a decision.

F&L recommends that we spend from the regular budget surplus of $4,000
first, and take the approx. $1,000 additional funds needed from the
Buildings Emergency Fund. We support the Community’s intent in seeking to
reach the $20,000 Buildings Emergency Fund goal. Given current concerns
about additional fire suppression expenses, it seems advisable not to spend
down the Buildings Emergency Fund any more than we have to.

3. Draft Proposal for 4/19/10 Community Meeting

Background

Since instituting the Late Association Fee policy in December 2009, F&L has
been very successful in working with the households significantly in arrears
to obtain written agreements defining payment plans to bring their balances
to zero. All of these households have been successful in maintaining these
agreements so far. One of these households has essentially paid in full
(within $30 of full payment).

According to the December 2009 Late Association Fee Agreement, it is now
time to place liens on the three remaining households. However, two
households have expressed a commitment to having their debt paid down by
June 1, 2010.

The Agreement specifies that F&L should place a lien on households with
balances due after three months. Here is the specific language from that
Agreement:

“Owners with existing past due accounts will have three payment periods to
bring their balances to zero before a lien is placed.”

We would like to be able to extend beyond three payment periods to
accommodate the expressed intent of the two households and also to give the
third household the option also to pay in full by June 1.

*Proposal*

For households that request an extension by April 30, 2010, F&L is
authorized by the community to extend the payment period for households to
bring their Association Fee balances to zero from March 31 to June 1, 2010
before a lien is placed.

*Pros*

-This would help us get closer to our goal of zero balances on all accounts.


- It would save time and money in placing liens that might then be paid off
in a short time.

*Cons*

- The community is not protected by lien(s) during the extended
time period we are requesting.

*4. **Reserve Fund*

Elph e-mailed Paul Conahan to find out whether May 5 or 17 works better for
him to do an education piece about the Reserve Fund and to answer questions
about the recent study.

MONKEY: We will gather questions from the community in advance of the
meeting to ensure that we address people's concerns.

*5. How should GO (through F&L) use Legal Counsel?*

Cher suggested a process for developing a proposal on how GO should use
legal counsel efficiently and economically. We were a little concerned
about having David Keast “review” our proposed policy (fox in henhouse?) but
recognize that his input could save us money or keep us from going astray in
our thinking.

MONKEY: Aaron will communicate with Cher about what she had in mind re:
checking with Dave Keast.

Do we need community approval for this? Does it need to be a proposal? We
are empowered to spend the $500 retainer we currently have. So we think we
don’t need a community-approved policy per se. What we need are guidelines,
and these would be stronger if we get community input on them. We will
develop draft guidelines and will ask the community for comment rather than
bringing forward a proposal to create a policy.

Note to committee: When we work on our revised F&L Committee Mandate, we
want to include detail about empowering F&L to use these guidelines to
develop an internal policy for working with Counsel on an ongoing basis.

We reviewed Cher’s suggested framework for the guidelines and think it looks
good. Our feedback is: How can we set in place a good system for the long
term without making it too cumbersome in the short term?

We want to do this work in committee or on Google docs so we don’t get
overwhelmed with a long string of e-mail comments.

*5. **Draft Revisions to Committee Mandate*

Cher went through our Master Deed and Bylaws very carefully to determine how
these documents define the GO Board’s financial and legal powers and duties.

She then tried to define what F&L’s responsibilities should be in carrying
out these duties for the Board. We went through this list very carefully,
suggesting a few edits.

MONKEY: Amy will incorporate these edits into Cher’s document using Track
Changes, and send them to the committee.

We then looked at the next section, in which Cher had italicized portions of
F&L’s existing mandate to emphasize areas that correspond to the above list,
and that we may wish to have delegated/mandated to F&L.

At this point we felt that we were not able to make further progress and
tabled this item until a future meeting.

*6. **Next meetings*

F&L will next meet on Monday, April 12 at 8 pm and on Thursday, April 22 at
7 pm.
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