Finance & Legal minutes: 2011-11-28

Minutes:

F&L Meeting minutes

11-28-11



Present: Mary, Kathy, Aaron, Becky, Amy



AGENDA

1. Moving GOCA funds to a new bank

2. Master Deed

3. GOCA Insurance

4. Discuss proposal for GOCA fund balance of $11,959.33

5. Transitioning to external bookkeeper

6. Next meeting




MONKEY: Aaron will talk to Pam about her 12/7 Alternative Meeting and
whether she’d be willing to spare 15 minutes for the F&L info piece
reintroducing the Master Deed.

MONKEY: Aaron will contact attorney David Keast to find out his
availability to do our Master Deed work before the end of the year.
MONKEY: Amy will call Barb Young on Dec. 1 to shift start date for policy
to Jan 1, 2012, and to find out our new premium amount.

MONKEY: Becky will request an alternative meeting in Winter 2012 for the
fund balance discussion.

MONKEY: Kathy, Becky, and Amy will meet this week to prepare for the
12/5/11 meeting with Len Pytlak, CPA, our external bookeeper




1. Moving GOCA funds to a new bank



We want to move the GOCA (and Meals) accounts because they are being
charged monthly fees.



On possible new home for them is at the UM Credit Union. Kathy has been
researching this. We have 3 accounts at U-M Credit Union for the Reserve:

- checking

- money market

- savings



Kathy wondered if we could move GOCA’s funds to UMCU to simplify things. She
currently hand-carries a check from GOCA’s bank account at DFCU to deposit
in the Reserve account every month (Carl extended this to quarterly). This
is a pain and she would like to simplify this task as well. (We
acknowledged that she could mail the check instead of hand-carrying.) Kathy
proposed moving the GOCA funds to UMCU into a new account, but to use the
Reserve checking account for GOCA funds, since we infrequently use that
checking account for Reserve fund expenditures.



We identified three reasons not to do this:



1. As Elph pointed out, GO had intentionally kept the Reserve funds
separate from GOCA funds to prevent “nefariousness.”

2. Mary brought up a concern about what the limit is for FDIC protection.
Our Reserve Fund will get large at some point, and if the institution
considered GOCA’s balance as part of our total holdings in addition to the
Reserve balance, we could easily exceed this. Becky looked at the FDIC’s
website and determined that FDIC coverage is for up to “$250K per
depositor, per insured bank, for each account ownership category.” Elph
later explained that deposits in credit unions are protected by NCUA (not
FDIC, which is for banks) for up to the same limit, $250K. He also pointed
out that credit unions don’t fail the way banks do, because they are part
of a network and are absorbed by other credit unions anytime they appear
not to be “healthy.”

3. We want to keep GO’s books really clean.



NOTE: We want to make sure we take FDIC/NCUA limits into consideration in
our Reserve investment policy when we draft it (soon).



Kathy found out that we need to provide a lot more documentation to UMCU
for our existing Reserve accounts, regardless of whether we open any more
accounts there or not. There are tighter regulations than before.


We are going to discuss banks with Len Pytlak CPA, when we meet with him on
12/5.



2. Master Deed



We have to take the proposed changes to the Master Deed before the
community because in 2005 we said we would. Aaron has been in touch with
Gail about getting on a community meeting agenda in December. Technically,
the proposal has already been before the community for its first meeting in
2005, and this would be the second meeting, at which a decision could be
made. However, given the time lapse, we think it would be better to
reintroduce the proposal at one meeting, and decide on it the next. We’d
like to do this in 2011 so we don’t have to ask to roll over the funds to
pay the attorney to 2012. Aaron is going to ask Pam if we could have 15
minutes at her December 7 alternative meeting to reintroduce the topic, and
then present for a decision on December 19. He will also contact our
attorney David Keast to see if he could do the work during between Dec.
20-31.



MONKEY: Aaron will talk to Pam about her alternative meeting and whether
she’d be willing to spare 15 minutes for the F&L info piece reintroducing
the Master Deed.

MONKEY: Aaron will contact attorney David Keast to find out his
availability to do our Master Deed work before the end of the year.



3. GOCA insurance



MONKEY: Amy will call Barb Young on Dec. 1 to shift start date for policy
to Jan 1, 2012, and to find out our new premium amount.



4. Discuss proposal for GOCA fund balance of $11,959.33.



Becky led a dot storm at the 10/17/11 comty meeting. It had two parts. The
first part was about strategy: spend it all, save it all, spend some/save
some? People wanted to do a combination (20 dots). (However, we later
learned that some people were confused by what ‘save’ means. Put in the
Reserve? Maintain a balance in the account? Rebate?)



Note: If the funds were fully rebated, each household would get $323.23.



The second part of the dot storm was to find out which projects people most
wanted to fund: Lighting (12 dots), rebates (11), Garden water line (7),
steps (5), followed by several 4’s.


At the end of the meeting, F&L promised to bring back a proposal.



We talked about dividing the money into thirds, to satisfy the various
indicators of high support: 1/3 in rebates (which would be about $100 per
household), 1/3 to savings (to maintain a balance in the account, or for
Buildings Maintenance or another rollover item, or for the Reserve – we in
the room preferred the Buildings Maintenance fund), and 1/3 toward a
project. Lighting was the most popular project, but since funding was
allocated towards this in the operating budget, it wasn’t certain that
people would still support this as strongly.



After considerable discussion we came up with a plan. We will request an
alternative meeting in Winter. In the first part of the meeting, we’ll ask
committees (who have prepared in advance), to present their ideas for
projects that cost between $1000-8000, including naming a honcho who will
see the project through.



Then we’ll play a game to determine how to allocate all the money. Each
household will get $300 in play money, and will have the choice of putting
their funds on the projects, or on rebates, or on savings (with several
choices here). The distribution of funds at the meeting will determine the
priorities for the fund balance.



F&L will then prepare a formal proposal and bring it back for two regular
meetings. So people who are not at the alternative meeting can still have
a say.



MONKEY: Becky will request an alternative meeting in Winter 2012 for the
fund balance discussion.



5. Meeting with Len Pytlak, CPA to begin transition to external bookkeeper


Kathy, Becky, and Amy are going to meet with Len Pytlak, CPA on Monday 12/5
to begin the transition to the external bookkeeper. We also have an
accumulation of policy questions to review and decide whether to ask Len
for advice.


MONKEY: Kathy, Becky, and Amy will meet this week to prepare for the
meeting with Len Pytlak, CPA.


6. Next meeting: December 12. This will be our last meeting of the year
as the 4th Monday is 12/26 and several of us won't be available.
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