Finance & Legal minutes: 2015-12-29

Minutes:

GO Finance & Legal Committee Meeting
Minutes – 12-29-15

Present: Becky G., Becky H., Debbi, Keith, Nicholas, Amy

1. Association insurance coverage

a) All members were in support Syndallas’s recommendation that we revise
our association policy with State Farm to increase the deductible to $5000
from $2500 and the coverage of our community possessions to $80,000. The
new premium will be $7595, compared with the $7885 we budgeted for 2016.

Amy will contact Syndallas to ask her to proceed.

Amy noted on the F&L Cooler List that during next year’s budget process,
we’ll need to start saving for the increased deductible.

b) Quote from Goodman-Venegas. Syndallas received a quote from
Goodman-Venegas and will report to F&L in January after she returns from
vacation. There may be some new options for us as to how we can cover
members in case of injury while doing GO work.

c) Family Farms. Becky G. reported that Nancy spoke with Richard of
Family Farms to find out if they have insurance coverage in the event that
someone who purchases their food becomes ill. Richard checked, and
reported that they do have coverage. Becky will ask Nancy to obtain a copy
of the insurance policy, so that we can have it reviewed to make sure we’re
covered.

d) Guest Room. Syndallas was told that if any money changes hands,
insurers would view the Guest Room as a hotel-like entity, which is not
covered by our current policy. However, when Syndallas asked these
questions, she may not yet have known that GOCA is a non-profit
corporation. We’d like to know if that changes the situation. Also, we’d
like to know if she informed the insurance agent that GO charges the host
household, not the guest. And that we could realistically characterize the
$5 fee as a reimbursement for consumables (toilet paper, soap, etc.) Amy
will follow up with Syndallas.

Debbi noted that we did not plan on any income from the GR for 2016, in
case we need to change our policy. If the policy needs to change, we will
refer it to the Common House Committee for handling.

e) Tree House. We would like to ask our insurance agent and/or attorney
to weigh in on how to manage any risk associated with the Tree House. There
will be a safe railing, and a staircase instead of a ladder, but would it
be considered an “attractive nuisance”? Do we need to do anything
preemptive to protect GO in the event of injury? Amy will add this to her
list of questions for Syndallas, as a starting point.

2. Draft CH Office lease

Attorney Rick Delonis provided us with a draft of a new lease for the CH
Offices. Committee members reviewed the draft and suggested a few minor
edits. The major focus of attention was on the insurance clause. Rick
recommended that office renters provide proof of insurance and recommended
specific levels. Amy ran this draft clause past Barb Young at State Farm;
she agreed that insurance was needed but recommended higher levels. The
cost through State Farm would be on the order of $475/year, or about
$40/month. We all felt that this would be a big hit for office renters who
are only paying about $200/mo in rent. We also questioned whether office
renters who do not see clients would need a different (lower) level of
insurance. And really, at a fundamental level, we want to understand why
GO’s insurance isn’t sufficient.

Amy will ask Syndallas to comment on this, and also ask Melisa Schuster if
she has business insurance.

Our goal is to refine Rick’s draft, then have CH office renters sign a new
lease on an annual basis.

The middle office renter, Matthew Cooke of TS, announced that he would
vacate by 12/31/15. Common House convener Elph is checking in with people
who have expressed interest in renting one of the offices.

3. GO Truck

a) Discuss draft “Requirements to be an Authorized Driver of GOCA’s
Truck”

We discussed this draft document and made additional edits. It is set up to
be signed by Authorized Truck Drivers as an acknowledgement that they have
read and understood the requirements. We talked inconclusively about
whether to have our attorney review the document. We’ll continue to think
about this. We don’t see this as a legally binding document.

We decided that it would be best to bring a reframed version of the
document forward as a proposal for Community approval. The approved
requirements would then be recorded in the Book of Agreements. Amy will
work on the proposal.

b) Truck Keys

We were concerned to learn that individuals have made personal copies of
the truck key. We don’t know how many keys are out there, or who has them.
This is not an F&L issue, however. We will recommend that the Grounds
Committee conduct an inventory of truck keys and create a policy for better
control of this community asset. For instance, the Snow Removal
Coordinator could issue keys to plowers during the snowy season for their
convenience, then plowers could turn them in at the end of each winter. We
also think that Grounds should make decisions about where the keys are
kept. F&L will limit its involvement to preparing a sign for the truck and
lock box stating that only Authorized Drivers may use the truck, and
directing the reader to more information. This is part of Amy’s special
project job for the winter season and she’ll follow up.

The Truck Policy, which dates from 2004, is now significantly out of date.
We will recommend to Grounds that they review and update the Truck policy
to include information about the requirements for authorized drivers, truck
keys, and under what circumstances truck driving privileges will be
revoked. These criteria should be specific and uniformly applied.

We’ve noticed recently that some GO committees seem unaware of existing
agreements affecting their committee’s work. Debbi will contact committees
to say that F&L recommends that, every year, committees should review all
of their active policies and mandates to make sure they are doing what
their policies say they should. They can also take advantage of the
“Refreshing Policy Moment” format at community meetings to remind the
community of existing agreements.

4. Arrears

We are preparing to place liens on units that are frequently over
the $1000 arrears threshold, per our community agreement. We’ve sent
numerous reminders and suggestions to use an automatic payment system, but
the pattern has continued. We decided to wait until after 12/31/15 so we
can provide our attorney with the most up-to-date information on balances
owed. The community agreement instructs F&L to announce the liens at the
next community meeting without naming the owner(s) or the unit number.
Members who wish to know the identity of the owner(s) in arrears may check
the public record, GO's QuickBooks records, or privately ask a member of
F&L for this information.

We decided to invite another household that is significantly in
arrears to attend our next F&L meeting to discuss next steps, then we’ll
report to the community. Becky H. will invite them. Becky G. will also
check with our CPA about a related tax question.

5. Deck reimbursement proposal

We have to have the Master Deed changes done before we can refund deck
money from the reserve, so we’re not in a hurry to bring this proposal
back. Tabled for now.

6. Bookkeepers’ update

a) Correcting bookkeeping errors

Becky did some bookkeeping preparations for 2016 today. She updated each
unit’s association fees and reserve fees with the new amounts. However, she
found that she had a mistake last year. She did not add the increase in
reserve fund contribution to one household’s records last year, so they now
owe about $160 for the year in unpaid reserve fees.

We discussed whether the household should have to pay for this since a
mistake was made. A variety of opinions were expressed and past examples
cited. Amy was tasked with asking our attorney how other condo
associations handle it when they discover a bookkeeping error, and have
either over or undercharged a household.

Becky has asked Kathy to double-check her work in setting up the books for
2016.

b) Audit

Jessica cannot begin the audit until the 2015 books are closed and the
taxes done. That means we have to get everything to Len as early as
possible. We need to ask people to submit receipts as early as possible
and close way earlier than we usually do.

c) CH Special Assessment

Len, Susan, and Becky went over instructions for how to record extra CH
Assessment payments. Becky will type these up for Keith and Kathy’s
information as well.

GO has to set up new amortization schedules for everyone who’s still paying
on the CH Assessment. Every time someone makes an extra payment, we need
to let Len know so he can re-amortize the amount. 8 households are still
paying. One household is close to being paid off.

d) Truck use charges

Keith will get the info to Susan as soon as possible.

7. Other

a) Trespassing. Do we want to post No Trespassing signs per recent e-mail
discussion? We need more information. This might be tied into our
insurance questions about attractive nuisances. Amy will talk to new
Grounds member, Gayle Turner, about this.


b) Pending items we are tracking:
• Smoke detector batteries installation responsibility – sent to Buildings
to clarify.
• Middle office renter’s promise to pay arrears in full by 1/31/16
• CH Special Assessment lien documentation – sent request to attorney
11/30/15. Amy will follow up after CH Office lease and liens are well in
hand.

8. Next meeting: Weds. January 13 @ 7 pm

Amy will send out a list of future meeting dates as we have made a few
adjustments.

******
F&L Agenda Cooler List (Amy updated the Priority Tasks section 12/29/15;
the rest still needs updating.)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_dmnNJmHmrwwFIfnscnRbPK-_8_kmahfFsOTn_fEvTY/edit
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