Finance & Legal minutes: 2014-10-27

Agenda:

Winter 2015 jobs/workers
Reserve study
Banking
CH Loans
Transparency of GO finances
Garages
Accounts receivable

Minutes:

Present: Debbi, Becky G., Keith, Judith, Amy

1. Winter 2015 jobs/workers

Continuing:

Becky G.: Bookkeeper

Kathy: Check depositor

Debbi: Counted member

Keith: Counted member

Remove: Budget-related jobs (these are for Fall season only)

Amy said she was willing to come back on F&L for the next season in the
convener role as strictly defined: scheduling meetings, tracking agenda
items and long-term tasks, and also taking minutes, but that she did not
feel comfortable with the Treasurer role insofar as it means holding high
level responsibility for the community's financial and legal status. She
does not have the expertise, is often not available during the workday to
respond to e-mail, and also has been traveling frequently for work and can
be out of contact for days at a time.

We decided to research the responsibilities of the Treasurer as defined in
the Master Deed and Bylaws to have a better understanding of what the job
entails.

Debbi suggested that we may need a culture change such that F&L makes
decisions in meetings and not over e-mail unless it's urgent, so that we
can have discussion and share responsibility. It's fine to send out an item
over e-mail that we need to read in advance of the meetings.

Reading and responding to e-mail quickly is a problem not only for Amy, but
also for Keith, and at times for Debbi, because of their day jobs.

We decided that we need an additional counted member who can help with the
work and respond to issues more quickly.

MONKEY: Becky will talk with a candidate we have in mind.

MONKEY: Amy will update F&L's jobs for Winter 2015 and enter the
pre-assigned positions thus far.

MONKEY: Amy and Debbi will research the responsibilities of the Treasurer
position.

Since Keith is not able to keep up with e-mail very easily, he sees that he
can be more task-oriented to help Becky. He currently tracks water/sewer
usage and truck billing. There may be other things Keith can do including
figuring out how to make spreadsheet formulas work, checking over Becky's
work, etc. Keith can also help Becky with filing and will look at a used
4-drawer filing cabinet Becky has to see if it could be swapped out for the
two-drawer cabinet in the CH Sitting Room.

MONKEY: Keith will check out Becky's used 4-drawer file cabinet and if it
is in good shape, move it to the Sitting Room.

We decided to add a counted member position and create a special project
position for Mary King to lead the community conversation on the Reserve
Fund (see below).

2. Reserve study

Becky has looked at the documents from Paul Conahan that Keith gave her at
the last meeting. They were very confusing! It took her a long time to
figure out what he was asking for. She created a spreadsheet to capture the
information he wants.

In his materials, Paul says it takes him four weeks to complete a reserve
study once he gets the information he needs from a community. It's possible
he could have the study completed and delivered to us by the end of the
year. He may have questions, but they will be posed to our current team as
we think this work will take place during the current work season.

Then we need to review the study and possibly give him corrections or
changes. Once we are satisfied with the new study, we need to figure out
how to make up any shortfall that exists between our current reserve fund
assessments and savings and what he anticipates we will need. We may need
to restructure the next 5 years of payments. We will need to share the
study with the community, answer people's questions, propose a payment
plan, and get consensus on it. We see this as a special, temporary role.
Mary King is willing to do this; she feels she has a good handle on what
happened with the 2010 study.

MONKEY: Keith will consolidate some outstanding questions about the
Reserve that are recorded in a few email messages.

MONKEY: Debbi will talk to Mary about how many hours she thinks will be
needed for the special short-term Reserve Fund position.

3. Banking

In August, Old National Bank bought out United Bank and Trust (UBAT). This
is the bank that holds GO's checking account and all of our savings
accounts. The U-M Credit Union still holds all of the Reserve accounts, as
well as the Meals account.



Because of a recent email conversation Becky had with Adi, she went to Old
National Bank and learned that our CPA Len Pytlak currently has full access
to our Old National accounts and is also a signer. This is not only the
case at the new bank; he also had full access and signing authority at
UBAT, and it carried forward. This is the policy at both banks: if you have
any access at all, it is full access, unless you pay a fee for read-only
access.

Becky then talked to Susan, who works for Len. Susan says she does not
need online access to our bank accounts. She wants actual bank statements,
either paper or PDFs. She would not use Mint.com to get our account
information.

In order to take Len and Susan off as signers with full access, Old
National Bank requires that the other check signers *physically* go to the
bank *together *to sign a form to take them off. Our current check signers
in addition to Len and Susan are Becky G., Kathy B. and Amy.

We agreed that we should get Len and Susan off the bank accounts. Becky
will start sending them the bank statements as PDFs or hard copies.

We're running short of time and will discuss Mint.com next meeting.

4. CH Loans

Mary and Debbi had different understandings about the next steps for
working with households who have CH loans. They are meeting tomorrow night
to write and print a letter CH Loan holders that will be sent out on e-mail
and put in cubbies as a hard copy. We want to ensure that every loan
holder understands that their loans will expire on June 30, 2015, and that
we are actively thinking about ways to help those who need it. Debbi and
Mary will develop a plan for those next steps.

5. Transparency of GO finances

The group agreed that financial transparency is crucial to GO's health.
Many of GO's important documents and much financial information are already
available on line for any GO member to review, and Becky sends out
statements on a monthly basis. Adi provided a list of items that he
thought ideally should be available to all GO members. We don't have time
to review this tonight but will discuss at a future meeting to see where
the gaps are between what's currently available and what's not. Community
members would benefit from more education on how to find and read GO's
financial information and why it is important that many eyes look at it.

6. Garages: no news

7. Accounts receivable

Becky waived a late fee for a household who had accidentally underpaid
their association fee by less than a dollar.

Debbi talked with one household about the need to update their existing
lien, and will try to call the other household tomorrow to alert them that
we plan to place a lien on their unit because their association fee balance
has exceeded $1,000. When Debbi has reached that household, Amy will get
back in touch with our attorney about writing up the lien documents.

8. Matters arising: none

9. Next meeting: Monday, November 10