Finance & Legal minutes: 2012-01-09

Minutes:

*Minutes of F&L Committee Meeting*

*1-9-12*



Present: Mary, Becky, Kathy, Aaron, Amy, Adi (for a portion of the mtg)



Monkeys:

- Monkey – Kathy will email Rod to let him know there is a debit card
with the new account.

- Monkey – Amy will invite Rod to next F&L mtg for limited time
conversation re: Meals funds

- Monkey – Kathy will send notices to households who owe on guest
room usage that they need to pay or will incur a fine.

- Monkey – Becky will send out an email to the community (and
announce at the next community meeting) announcing the new procedures for
internal controls

- Monkey - Kathy and Becky will continue to work on defining what
reports need to be created

- Monkey – Kathy and Amy will review Becky’s notes from mtg. w/ Len

- Monkey - Kathy will look for past tax returns

- Monkey – Becky will send out an email before the $11,000
alternative meeting on Feb. 1, soliciting pitches for the use of the money
(and will connect directly w/ Grounds re: lighting as a project)

- Monkey – Adi will send around links to info re: other communities
that place a monetary value on work

- Monkey – Aaron will respond to Judith re: painting.

- Monkey – Aaron will look at our letter to Keast and see if we can
include asking him questions about this issue of an unscrupulous buyer who
refuses to do work (or have renters do work)

- Monkey – Aaron and Amy will meet re: letter to Keast (including
feedback from Dec cmty meeting)

-



1. Bookkeeping update (transition to CPA, implementing recommended
internal controls, CPA's answers to questions posed at December meeting)

· Just got a letter from DFCU, ironically, announcing a special
deposit of ~$344.29 (dividend); on another occasion, Kathy went in to get a
statement that we hadn't received and they charged her $5 to print it.
Argh!

· Dorothy is not responding to our messages re: her rebate. We have
sent messages to 3 different places (FB and email) that others are
confirming are current, working addresses for her. We will give her a date
by which she must respond; otherwise, we’ll roll the rebate (~$400) back
into general operating (Note: Subsequent to the mtg, Dorothy responded to
Kathy's msg.)

· Meals has a new bank account at UMCU, with an attached debit card
(there are three – Kathy has all three). Monkey – Kathy will email Rod to
let him know there is a debit card with the new account.

· Monkey – We will invite Rod to next F&L mtg for limited time
conversation re: Meals funds

· Re: late fees policy. Question arose whether F&L has been charging
$25 late fee for households that owe small amounts, such GO renters or TS
members for Guest Room usage. We have not done this consistently, and the
policy is unclear because when we wrote it we were not anticipating an
issue of TS members and GO/TS renters accruing arrears. We agreed that the
spirit and intent of the policy was for *any* account that had a past due
balance to incur a fee. Decision: we will send out warnings that if the
households in question don’t pay the amount due by the end of the month,
they will be charged a fee.

· Steps to take to implement internal controls (from conversation with
Len Pytlak CPA). Those recommended internal controls are:

a) Every check signed by two people – we want to implement this

b) Get signatures (from convener, or if necessary a counted member of
committee) on reimbursement form authorizing the purchase; or, include
approval for purchase and maximum amount to be spent in the minutes of the
committee. The person who has been asked by the cmtee to buy something
would need to print minutes and include with receipt. We will implement
this as well.

c) Bank statements should not go to people who can write checks (the
only statements that come now are DFCU and we are closing that account;
from now on, accountants will be able to access statements on line)

d) Not a control, but he also recommended that we not have more than
$100K in any account (FDIC/NCUA guarantee maxes at $100K)



Monkey – Becky will send out an email to the community (and

announce at the next community meeting) explaining the new

procedures for internal controls.



· We can have Len and/or Susan do QB training if desired (they both do
that)

· Monthly reports –

a) We will create reports and send them (initially) to finops and F&L,
then we’ll figure out how to disburse so people have info without
overwhelming everyone

b) Reports: (Kathy and Becky will continue to work on defining on this

1. Reserve – how much is there; any activity

2. Resource: mint.com (Adi already has it set up) – sends weekly reports
from multiple accounts

3. Reminder – Late Fees policy stipulates certain reports are part of
monthly statements

· Tabled: Discussion of cash vs. accrual accounting; Len said that
because we’re doing rebates, cash system makes more sense, but he didn’t
feel strongly either way; Adi went to IRS site and it says that, if an org
is filing Schedule C, once it has decided its system, it needs to stay with
that system (we don’t know if we file that Schedule – Kathy will check).



· Discussed briefly, then tabled: investment strategy for Reserve
monies



2. Master Deed -- discuss new input from Pare @ TS via Adi

· TS has an unscrupulous investor who has purchased a unit and made it
clear that his renters will not do community work; he’s challenging
everything in the budget that he thinks TS would not be willing to go to
court to defend

· At sheriff’s sale, no one bid; investors came a month later and
offered to buy it for less than price of sheriff’s sale. TS tried to
intervene and buy it themselves. Bank said no and allowed unscrupulous
investor to buy it.

· Also, there’s an issue of the bank having owned it for 3 months
before this, and the bank didn’t pay assoc dues; investor won't pay either,
so TS is out 3 months assoc. fees.

· Landlord is planning to rent to 3 students and not ask them to do
the work

· TS is asking themselves how to deal with this

· Pare is asking if GO would like to share in lawyer expenses for
answering further questions

Monkey – Aaron will look at our letter to Keast and see if we can include
asking him questions about this issue of an unscrupulous buyer who refuses
to do work (or have renters do work)

Monkey – Aaron and Amy will meet re: letter to Keast (including feedback
from Dec cmty meeting)

3. Next steps on the ~$11K balance in GOCA's account

a. Becky facilitating an alternative meeting in Feb to gather more info
from the community



4. Matters arising

· Question from Judith about Reserve funds available for painting in
2012

Monkey – Aaron will respond to Judith.

· The value of our work is not recorded anywhere; so, when people
compare GO Assoc fees to other condo assoc, it looks like we’re much
cheaper, but the fact that adult members have to work 8 hours/month gets
lost

· Main benefit: This system would also allow us to charge a landlord
(e.g. one of the predatory people that bought a foreclosed unit at TS
recently) if they bought a unit (and/or rented it) and the work wasn’t
getting done

· Another benefit: makes value of our own work more visible

· We would have to work out the other side (e.g. how to make it fair
for households with different numbers of adult members)

· Next step – might make sense to do some comparisons of other condo
assoc. (would need to compare apples to apples); Adi says Paul did a
survey a year ago and we were about $200 less than the least of other
associations

· It would also be helpful to look at other associations who organize
it this way

· How would this impact the climate around work? Would there be more
policing? Would people with money buy their way out of work? Is that
OK? Would
this affect getting a loan to buy a unit (if Assoc fees appear $200 more
than what actually gets paid)? How? What might other affects be?

· Question – how does this fit in with other F&L priorities?

· Work might take this on – F&L needs to understand how it might work





· We authorize Kathy to use F&L funds to buy paper and ink (up to $60)
for printing statements and reports



5. Review and prioritize to-do list (time permitting) (time didn’t
permit)
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