![Minutes: Finance & Legal 2012-02-13 [Minutes]](display/images/gocohologo.gif)
Finance & Legal minutes: 2012-02-13
Minutes:
F&L Minutes 2.13.12Present: Becky, Aaron, Mary, Amy, Elph, Kathy
AGENDA
1. Monthly reports
2. Maturing Investments
3. Accounts receivable
4. Unit in foreclosure
5. When will we be ready for the Annual Report on 2011?
6. Review scheduled 2012 Reserve expenditures
7. Multiple savings accts for rollover funds
8. Cash flow bookkeeping procedure
9. Feedback from 2/1 alternative comty mtg re: $11,000 balance; next
steps
10. Rebate from Paul Conahan
11. Q from TS: would we consider lending $ to them for their painting
project?
12. Master Deed
13. Garden Item
14. Time permitting, review and prioritize to-do list (NOT!
MONKEY: Amy will request time on 3/19 comty mtg agenda to introduce
financial reports. 30 minutes, presented by Becky & Kathy.
MONKEY: Mary will talk with two households in arrears.
MONKEY: Becky will talk to the household in foreclosure to find out the
latest news.
MONKEY: Kathy will talk to the accountant to find out when we will be
ready for the Annual Report on 2011.
MONKEY: Kathy will implement the several decisions we made about combining
very small rollover accounts with related larger ones, to streamline our
accounting.
MONKEY: Becky will put together a list documenting for the accountant and
for the community the agreements we have about which accounts roll over and
which funds get transferred where.
MONKEY: Amy will put the cash flow bookkeeping procedure on the next F&L
agenda to determine who will follow up.
MONKEY: Amy will get back to Lyn Solms to thank her for the opportunity to
consider making a loan to TS, but declining to pursue.
MONKEY: Aaron will send Amy the latest draft of the Master Deed letter to
Keast for one last look, then we,...™ll send it and request a meeting with him.
MONKEY: Garden group needs to get bids and bring a proposal back to F&L.
1. Monthly reports
The reports we,...™d like to have the accountant send out monthtly as pdfs to
GO-Talk are:
'- A/R without names
'- Balance sheet with all non-zero balances (includes reserve &
rollovers)
'- Budget to actuals report
'- Committee expense reports
Start in March.
MONKEY: Amy will request time on 3/19 comty mtg agenda to introduce these
reports. 30 minutes, presented by Becky & Kathy.
2. Maturing investments
We have a Reserve Fund CD that matures in April. It will be moved to the
Reserve,...™s money market fund at UMCU.
We also have loans for the Common House with two households and the Reserve that mature in May.
We need to get to our investment policy discussion!
3. Accounts receivable
A couple of households are falling further than one month behind; one in
particular is approaching the limit before a lien is filed. A lien is
filed at 120 days past due.
MONKEY: Mary will talk with two households in arrears.
4. Unit in foreclosure
MONKEY: Becky will talk to the household to find out the latest news.
5. When will we be ready for the Annual Report on 2011?
We don,...™t know.
MONKEY: Kathy will talk to the accountant.
6. Review scheduled 2012 Reserve expenditures
Painting ,...... $88,225 + $4,644 from 2011
Washer/dryers - $3800
Network interface, Phase I allowance - $1,159
Kitchen countertops ,...... $4110 ,...... but probably will save this for the time we
remodel the kitchen
7. Multiple savings accts for rollover funds
We have approximately 12 rollover accounts. Some have very small balances
or seem like they could be streamlined. We prefer that rollover funds have
$1,000 or more. We discussed closing out a few of these:
- Garden balance of $45.96 will be transferred to Grounds budget
- Kids Room balance of $41.63 will be transferred to Common House
Improvement Fund
- Combine CH Interior Paint Fund of $1265.40 with CH Improvement Fund
- CH Loan balance of $0.80 will be transferred to CH Improvement Fund
The rollover funds are now all in one interest-bearing savings account at
United Bank and Trust (UBT), which does not do sub-accounts. We could open
separate savings accounts for each rollover but this is a lot of work. We
need to have a checking account that we can easily transfer funds to when
we need to spend from the rollover accounts.
Carl and Kathy set up sub-accounts in Quickbooks. Aren,...™t these clear
enough? Elph and Adi have argued that separate banks accounts are more
securely separate. These are long-term accounts, we,...™re not going to be
changing them frequently.
Adi has volunteered to set this up at his on-line bank, ING Bank. Elph
said that ING has a 3-day waiting period before funds can be used. Elph
recommends that we do separate savings accounts at UBT and feels strongly
enough about this to do the legwork himself.
Becky noticed that the CH Kitchen Improvements Fund was missing from the
list and that it should have $1000 from the 2011 budget. Kathy made a note
of this. This will be consolidated with the CH Improvements fund.
MONKEY: Kathy will implement the several decisions we made about combining
very small rollover accounts with related larger ones, to streamline our
accounting.
* *
MONKEY: Becky will put together a list documenting for the accountant and
for the community the agreements we have about which accounts roll over and
which funds get transferred where.
Negatives to setting up savings accounts: mainly the hassle of setting up;
the additional statements to reconcile shouldn,...™t be very arduous because
most of these accounts don,...™t have a lot of activity.
8. Cash flow bookkeeping procedure
The committee discussed and agreed that it would be a good idea to have
written directions for the bookkeeper on what should be done if our GOCA
checking account gets low. The bookkeeper should be free to transfer funds
into checking from a Reserve money market in the event of a cash flow
shortage.
MONKEY: Amy will put the cash flow bookkeeping procedure on the next F&L
agenda to determine who will follow up.
9. Feedback from 2/1 alternative comty mtg re: $11,000 balance; next
steps
Dale has reviewed 2008, 2009, 2010 spreadsheets from Carl. He discovered
the following:
'- There is a line in the spreadsheet called the ,...Undesignated Fund.,...- The
total there is now ~$12K (what we,...™ve been calling ,...the $11k,...-). We can see
how this amount has grown over the last 3 years, but not where the money
came from before 2008.
o In 2009 - $2805 in account (Citizens Bank) whose sole purpose was to
secure the CH loan (originally was very likely contingency). We closed
that account when we paid off that loan.
o At some point GOCA loaned Meals $3,000. Meals paid this back. Those
two together total $6k.
o We don,...™t have similar spreadsheets from 2003-2007, so we don,...™t know
about the other $6k.
o Mary thinks that Carl probably doesn,...™t know where the other $6K came
from ,...... our bookkeeping just wasn,...™t that tight in the early years.
o Dale is deeply concerned that we don,...™t know where this money came from.
o Carl emailed during our meeting ,...... he does not have similar spreadsheets
from 2003-2007. Tracy Williams told Carl she did not know where the
unattributable funds came from.
Discussion of feedback from community re $11K was tabled.
10. Rebate from Paul Conahan
Aaron received a letter from Paul Conahan saying that when we paid him for
the 2010 Reserve Study we also paid him for the subsequent update in 3-5
years. He sent that check back saying he would rather negotiate with us
with a blank slate when the time comes, but that he will still give us a
deep discount for the next study as he did for the 2010 study.
With the deposit of this check, we will have a zero balance with Reserve
Associates.
11. Q from TS: Would we consider lending $ to them for their painting
project?
Lyn Solms from Touchstone informally approached Amy after the last Steering
Committee meeting asking if we would consider making them a loan from our
Reserve Fund to help with their painting project.
'- We would want to see their financial statements first.
'- Adi emailed with input, saying we,...™d want to see:
o a bid from a commercial lender to TS showing the interest rate and
period for the same loan amount
o an estimate on the tax liability based on the interest earned by GOCA
because this would be income from an outside source
o an estimate for the cost of drawing up the contract
o an estimate on the cost of collections and/or other legal remedies
required to recover that money in case of default (what if TS declares
bankruptcy?)
,...- Adi concluded: ,...Although I am sympathetic, I'm very reluctant
to loan GOCA
money to TS given their sizeable liabilities, uncompleted
project and various
needs for money.
'- This is another complex loan/financial arrangement that takes time
and energy that would take time away from other F&L business
'- Touchstone has huge liabilities
'- We would need it to be collateralized
'- Should we ask them for a proposal?
o How much do you want to borrow, over what time, what terms, and what
collateral?
'- Decided ,...... we are not interested in loaning them money ,...... too
complicated, too much time, too messy if they are not able to pay back.
MONKEY: Amy will get back to Lyn Solms to thank her for the opportunity to
consider making a loan to TS, but declining to pursue.
12. Master Deed
MONKEY: Aaron will send Amy the latest draft of the Master Deed letter to
Keast for one last look, then we,...™ll send it and request a meeting with him.
13. Garden item
New Water System for Garden
- Final budget included a line item for $430 to service a loan for
installing new water meter for garden (loan from Reserve)
- We could borrow $3,500 from Reserve at 5% for 10-year loan from
Reserve (would need rough increase each year in the line item)
- So this is what we,...™ll do.
MONKEY: Garden group needs to get bids and bring a proposal back to F&L.
14. Time permitting, review and prioritize to-do list ,...... NOT!
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