Finance & Legal minutes: 2011-10-10

Minutes:

Minutes of F&L Committee Meeting

10-10-11



Present: Mary, Aaron, Becky, Amy, Kathy, Adi



*Agenda*

1. Minutes of 9/28/11meeting

2. Hiring out book-keeping, short and longer-term

3. How to use $11,000 balance that Carl found

4. Master Deed Issues

5. Bank search

6. How do we charge TS for recycling and snowplow?

7. Tabled items



*Action items*

• Becky will talk to Work Convener (Dale) about bumping Work Com’s agenda
item for 10/17

• Becky will e-mail Gail requesting time on community agenda for 10/17/11

• Becky will write back to Carl with a counterproposal for doing bookkeeping
through the end of January

• Amy and Kathy will work on the Bookkeeping proposal for 10/17/11 meeting

• Mary and Aaron will work on recommended resolution to LCE/GCE table
ambiguities

• Aaron will ask Adi to post a document showing just the current Reserve
spreadsheet on line, not the entire Reserve study document

• Amy will complete minutes of previous meeting and tonight’s meeting,
generating an initial list of possible uses for the $11,000 GOCA account
balance to seed a brainstorm/dot storm for the 10/17/11 community meeting

• Becky and Kathy will work on designing useful reports for the bookkeeper
to generate

• Aaron will ask Keast to include language in the Master Deed specifying
that garages can be transferred from one GO owner to another, but not to
non-owners.



1. Minutes of 9/28/11 meeting



Amy stopped working on the minutes as it was taking her so long to
paraphrase Carl’s long e-mail message regarding his findings after reviewing
several years of GO bookkeeping. The committee agreed that she could paste
in Carl’s message.





2. Hiring out bookkeeping, short and longer-term



No objections were voiced at the 10/5/11 community meeting when the idea of
hiring out GOCA’s bookkeeping was proposed as part of the 2012 F&L budget,
so we feel encouraged to proceed with this recommendation.



Kathy does not feel confident that she can maintain the bookkeeping systems
that Carl set up. Carl was trained to use standard bookkeeping procedures,
but Kathy has never taken a bookkeeping class. Carl gave her as much
instruction as possible during the "hand-off,” but now that the books have
been updated using proper practices, we need someone with the necessary
training to keep them in good shape.



Carl has offered, for pay, to reassume the role of bookkeeper to finish out
the 2011 fiscal year including preparations for GOCA’s tax return,
determination of 2011 rebates, and setting up the books for 2012.



We will propose at the 10/17/11 community meeting that we hire Carl to
finish out 2011, and will propose to pay him using some of the money we
would have spent in 2011 for an Annual Review. (Note: Not everyone at the
meeting agreed with this proposal. Subsequent to the meeting, the
proposal’s details were further discussed and modified.)



We discussed whether we need a CPA or a bookkeeper to do our books. Our
current thought is to try using a bookkeeper (less expensive) first and have
a CPA check the person’s work in an Annual Review. If the bookkeeper’s work
proves to be inadequate, we’ll then recommend that the community hire a CPA.
(Amy is meeting with a CPA on Wednesday and will get more information then
about cost, etc.)



After January 2012, as required by our Bylaws, we will hire a third party
(CPA) to review the 2011 books, using funds budgeted for this purpose in
2012.



We will hire a bookkeeper to manage GOCA’s books in 2012. Again, in about
February 2013, we will hire a third party (CPA) to review the 2012 books.



If Carl is hired on a temporary basis, we will ask him to document the tasks
he does from now through the close of 2011, and the amount of time he spends
on each. We will use this information to craft a contract with a bookkeeper
for 2012, to start February 1, 2012. Carl is interested in this job and has
made a proposal to do it. We will compare his offer to that of other
candidates, such as the person from Aaron’s church, and Scott Bogard. The
information Amy obtains from the CPA will also be discussed at our next
meeting.





MONKEYS:

• Amy and Kathy will work on a proposal to hire Carl through January 31,
2012.

• Becky will ask Gail for 30 minutes on the 10/17 agenda and will present
the item. She will also talk with Dale about bumping the Work Committee
item.

• Becky will make a counterproposal to Carl, offering him $20/hr with a cap
on the number of hours, to do the work through January 31, 2012. This was
his initial offer. He subsequently submitted a proposal based on the $4000
placeholder amount in the F&L 2012 budget, but this was a high-end
placeholder.



We will propose to the community as part of the 2012 budget process to leave
the $4000 figure in 2012 budget so we have room to learn through experience
how much we need to budget for a bookkeeper.



Kathy has done the bookkeeping for September and October, except for
calculating the rebates. She is currently getting 10 hours work credit per
month. If Carl were hired, she would serve as Check Writer, which is 3
hours/month. She will also handle the transfer of GOCA and Meals funds from
our old bank to a new one as soon as a decision is made regarding which of
two finalists to go with. She will also work with Becky on designing useful
reports for the bookkeeper to generate monthly.



Catherine is currently assigned the 3-hour Check Writer job so perhaps she
could be entered into the contingency pool.



The bookkeeper Aaron contacted through his church would charge $50/hour for
an estimated 6-8 hrs/week initially. This would probably decrease as she
became more familiar with our books. Carl’s rough estimate initially was 20
hours/month, but when he broke that down into specific items, we could see
places to trim down to about 11-12 hrs/mo. January would cost more because
of year-end and new year tasks.





3. How to use $11,959.33 balance that Carl found



We decided that the best way to proceed would be to ask for 15 minutes on
the agenda on 10/17/11 to do a brainstorm and dot storm with the community
on how to use the balance that Carl found in his review of the books. Becky
will present.



We should remind people that each year, each unit’s Reserve contribution
goes up by $10/mo. So for example, $4000 from the $11,959.33 balance would
cover one year’s increase in the Reserve. However, this sets households up
for a big jump when it’s gone (e.g. $20 the second year.) Or we could find
a way to stretch out the reduction the years until our next review in 2015.




Or put money in the Reserve early to start earning interest now.



Amy gathered the following ideas to “seed” the brainstorm, drawn from Carl’s
list and F&L discussions and e-mails:



• Rebate the whole amount.

• Rebate a portion, and allocate the remainder to one or more Rollover
Funds.

• Rebate a portion, and allocate the remainder to the Reserve Fund.

• Rebate a portion, allocate another portion to one or more Rollover Funds,
and allocate the remainder to the Reserve Fund.

• Allocate a portion to one or more Rollover Funds, and allocate the
remainder to the Reserve Fund.

• Allocate the whole amount to one or more Rollover Funds.

• Allocate the whole amount to the Reserve Fund.

• Leave some amount in the GOCA checking account to maintain a balance.

• Use some of the money to fund the Garden watering capital improvement

• Use some of the money to fund stairs on the north slope



4. Master Deed Issues



• LCE/GCE spreadsheet.

We reviewed minutes from the November 21, 2005 comty meeting and concluded
that, as planned, we will go to our attorney (David Keast) to develop a
legal narrative based on the LCE/GCE spreadsheet, and that we need to bring
this language back to the community for approval (this will be the second
meeting as far as decision-making goes). There are some ambiguities on the
LCE/GCE spreadsheet that need to be cleaned up before it can go to Keast.



In 2005, the community asked F&L to come up with a philosophical framework
for resolving ambiguities, which we agreed on as follows: Assume that an
item is the community’s responsibility unless it’s obvious that it’s an
individual responsibility.



We will send out a list of what we think are the best resolutions to the
remaining ambiguities for reaction to the people who were most involved in
2005. Send to Dale, Judith, Willie, and Elph, and also to Malcolm as the
current Buildings convener, with a deadline.



MONKEY: Mary and Aaron will work on spreadsheet and answering ambiguities.




• Garage transfers when there’s a mortgage

Garages are LCEs. Owners can sell the use of their garage to another GO
owner. Adi pointed that if the garage is on the owner’s mortgage, s/he
needs to inform the lender and make sure the lender agrees to the sale. We
will make a note to this effect on the form we intend to prepare for future
garage sales. This form must be filled out by the seller and signed by the
Treasurer. F&L then needs to file an amendment to the Master Deed with the
Township showing the transfer of ownership. We will ask Keast to verify
that this is the best process.


In addition, we’d like to further amend the Master Deed as follows:



…garages can only be transferred to another owner, *and cannot be
transferred to a non-owner.*

* *

MONKEY: Aaron will include this in the proposed Master Deed changes, and
ask for community approval when all of Keast’s proposed language is
presented to the community.



Q: Does the Reserve spreadsheet align with GCE/LCE spreadsheet?

A: Yes, per Aaron, who worked on the Reserve spreadsheet during the recent
study.



5. Bank search

We are comparing UM Credit Union to United Trust. We still don’t have all
the information we need.



6. How do we charge TS for recycling and snowplow?

Recycling is billed quarterly based on actual recycle rolloff
pulls. Snowplow
is an annual charge and TS is very good about just paying this.



7. Tabled items

• Job changes, preassigns for next work season must be updated before Nov.
18

• Adi’s request that we send out, for the historical record, detailed
information the 2008-10 rebates (years/amounts) and show how the rebates
were calculated for units that get partial amounts.

• Adi’s suggestion that we fold water & sewer into budget – no objection
from Rod – who decides?

• Reserve Fund proposal: spending early or over budget, how to pay back,
how invested

- • Adi’s proposal to reduce fluctuations in cash flow and budget, to make
it more predictable

- • Amy updated the F&L to-do list - group needs to review and
reprioritize
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