Finance & Legal minutes: 2016-09-12

Agenda:

2017 Finance & Legal Operating Budget request
Arrears
Bookkeeping Updates
Master Deed
Truck Usage Policy
Insurance

Minutes:

Minutes of 9-12-16 Finance & Legal Committee Meeting



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



1. 2017 Finance & Legal Operating Budget request (due to Mary & Dale by
9/17)


We plan to keep all the line items the same except:


Truck Insurance will get folded into the larger insurance line
because our truck insurance is now part of our association policy.

Becky G. will research how much our annual truck license fee costs
and we'll keep that as a separate line item.

Becky will also research how much we should budget for the general
insurance line. We paid State Farm for part of 2016, and Goodman Venegas
for the remainder of 2016 extending into 2017.

We're going to leave the Professional Bookkeeper line as is even if
we decide to have the audit firm prepare our taxes next year (which is
something we are interested in doing). We would simply pay them out of the
same line. We'll continue with the bookkeeping service provided by Len
Pytlak CPA for reconciling our accounts as this provides an outside eye on
our books and a resource for asking about best practices.

Professional Fees (attorney) were not heavily spent this year
because we didn't get as far with the Master Deed changes as we had hoped.
We are making progress, however, so we'll need to pay the attorney for the
work when the time comes.

Becky will email our insurance agent again to ask her about
insurance for the Guest Room. Right now we are not charging for the Guest
Room because we are concerned that we might not be covered if we were to
make a claim when we are charging for use. We need direction from the new
insurance company so we know whether to budget for Guest Room income in
2017.



2. Arrears

a. A household with significant arrears will be coming to talk with us
at our next meeting on 9/28. Because the arrears exceed $2000, we are
obliged by our community agreement to bring the matter to the community and
to name names before we take legal action. We plan to do this at the
October 5 meeting unless the household brings their debt under $2000 by
then.



For reference, here is the relevant section of our agreement about arrears:



"4. If the unpaid balance of Association dues accumulates to $2,000 or more:

a) GOCA will pursue all legal avenues against the debtor(s) to collect
unpaid association dues, which may include going to court (e.g. garnishing
wages, bank accounts, or tax returns). Any legal and/or court fees will be
assigned to the debtor(s) in arrears. If the debt continues to grow, we may
have to take additional legal action.

b) the debtor(s) lose their right to be part of the decision-making for any
GOCA financial or legal proposals. They may participate in the discussion
only.

c) the community will be notified that legal action is going to be taken.
This notice will include the name(s) of the people involved, the dollar
amount owed and the type of action(s) we are pursuing. F&L will update the
community as needed."



We noted that the community could decide to make an exception to this
agreement, but F&L is not empowered to do so.





b. As noted in previous minutes, several association fee checks went
missing in July, causing a lot of work for our bookkeeper as she contacted
households and banks. It turned out that a temporary mail carrier had put
the envelopes in the 500 LLD cubby, instead of in the locked 500 LLD mail
box. Our Finops workers normally don't check the cubby. Going forward,
they will check it in case this happens again.





3. Bookkeeping Updates

a. Audit: Becky received some questions from the auditors and will get
back to them.



4. Master Deed: Debbi is trying to figure out a new schedule for
getting the work done while the annual budget process is underway.



5. Truck Usage Policy: tabled



6. Insurance

a. Received insurance documentation from Syndallas for middle office.
Have Melisa's. Amy will ask Elph (CH Convener) if there is any news from
Kelly.

b. Family Farms insurance certificate: Amy will send two samples of
what we need to Keith.

c. Status of collecting mortgagee information - All but 2 owners have
provided their info, despite being asked multiple times in multiple ways.
When our attorney starts work on the Master Deed, we'll ask him to research
the information we need and we'll charge his time to the households.

d. Schedule time to discuss big packet of insurance docs with Syndallas

i. Which docs should be
uploaded to WIKI?

ii. Start digging into our
more esoteric questions about the guest room, tree house, workers entering
units to do community tasks, etc.

See item 1. above for discussion of insurance for the Guest Room.



e. Next steps on units being charged property taxes on garages they
don't own. - Pending



f. CH Special Assessment Liens (Amy) after Truck Pending



g. Deck refunds: to be paid when Master Deed is done.




7. Next Meeting: Weds 9/28 @ 7 pm in the CH Sitting Room


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