Finance & Legal minutes: 2011-09-12

Minutes:

Hi F&L, a couple of things:

> At its last meeting, F&L concluded that its proper role is to be very
> conservative in safeguarding the community’s financial health, and we were
> inclined to say that no funds should be rebated unless they exceed the
> substantial outstanding debt to the community.
There was a big backlash when F&L made a decision not to rebate money a few years ago, for the same reasons I believe. I don't disagree with this decision or idea - but I think it would go a long way for F&L to bring this as a discussion item to the plenary. Some people were very angry about it last time. I was upset about what I felt was a lack of community input on it last time. Just a suggestion.

> This led to a discussion about cash vs accrual accounting, and from there
> the idea arose to obtain some financial training both for the community as a
> Board of Directors and for F&L members. See next item.
This is a fabulous idea. I think we would all benefit from understanding our financial info better.

> We decided to ask Work Com if we could count this as a half-day of work for
> a community work day. This is something we can’t easily accomplish in
> regular committee meetings. We think that a four-hour block will make the
> difference in getting this done.
Great idea! When I saw how much time you were going to need to work on this I thought, "Oh no!". You should definitely get work credit of some sort for this.

-- Katie