Finance & Legal minutes: 2019-09-11

Minutes:

Minutes of 9-11-19 GO Finance & Legal Meeting


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


MONKEYS
• Amy will send F&L’s 2020 Budget to Mary & Dale (DONE)
• Amy will request that the Rental Lease Admin Asst job description be
added to the work survey (DONE)
• Amy will let Process know that F&L is counting on them to make the
weekend fun and that we would like to request facilitation for the meeting
portions of the weekend. (DONE)
• Debbi will ask Rick to verify her understanding of the Allocation of
Value table. Maybe it doesn’t have to be in the MD.
• F&L members should check on arrears around the first of October when
Becky H. will be away.
• Amy will ask Mary for an update on the Reserve Study.
• Amy will send a summary of the Srienergy response to Buildings Com
(DONE).
• Becky G. will let our attorney know as soon as the Srienergy check comes,
and will deposit it in the Reserve fund.
• Yi-Miau requested the documents for recent F&L proposal docs for the Book
of Agreements
• Becky will update the Basement Egress proposals with the
amendments, then send to Yi-Miau
• Debbi will do the same with the Skills & Thrills proposal
• Amy will write to Sarah with the response to her question about GO
insurance coverage. (DONE)


1. Basement egress @ 9-4-19 community meeting: Debrief.
* Awesome meeting! Three proposals passed. F&L has done its part and
Grounds will take it from here
* 9/20 deadline may not work for some neighbors—Becky G. is waiting for a
call from Reid to see if she can extend the deadline for doing the work
this year at the price quoted. Two additional buildings have asked for
quotes as well.


2. F&L Budget 2020 -
MONKEY: Amy will send F&L’s 2020 Budget to Mary & Dale

Bookkeeping/Operating - $700 - increase to $750
Notes: Expenses this year: new checks, Michigan Nonprofit registration
fee ($20), Quickbooks price went up
F&L - All interest (tax calculation - offset above) - no change
Insurance - Keep total at $15K
Notes:
• We have a new master policy with State Farm after Michigan Millers
decided to raise our rates unreasonably. We paid $1500 to keep our
coverage going during the transition. Our new policy is less expensive but
it may go up some in 2020.
• Truck Insurance - Grounds hasn’t yet been able to find a snow removal
service that can take us on for this winter so right now it looks like
we’ll be using our truck again this winter
Professional bookkeeper - Keep at $1800
Professional Fees (lawyer and tax prep) - keep at $1500
Notes:
• Audit next year (every 3rd year) - we have a savings account for this and
for the Master Deed, fully funded with $5000
• Truck Fees ( tags) - keep at $110
Workshop Construction line - no change


3. Rental Lease follow up
• Sarah’s lease - review by attorney of two items she left out that are in
the lease template?
Waiting to hear from Sarah.
• Rental Lease Admin Asst. Job Description - Review Becky H’s draft:


In consultation with the Finance and Legal Committee, administer collection
and review of residential rental leases. Provide owner-landlords with the
GO lease template and, working with F&L, review any modifications made to
the template for compliance with Great Oak governing documents and
community agreements. If there are questions about lease template
modifications or if landlords use a different lease with questionable
additions or omissions, refer these to F&L to send to the GO attorney for
review. Ensure that copies of approved new, signed leases are on file, and
update the lease files for ongoing rentals as lease terms expire, on at
least an annual basis.


MONKEY: Amy will request that the Rental Lease Admin Asst job description
be added to the work survey (DONE)


4. Skills & Thrills / Master Deed edition
Nothing to do this minute.
Fun or interesting things are not on Debbi’s radar.
We talked a bit about facilitation strategies.


MONKEY: Amy will let Process know that F&L is counting on them to make the
weekend fun and that we would like to request facilitation for the meeting
portions of the weekend. (DONE)
MONKEY: Debbi will ask Rick to verify her understanding of the Allocation
of Value table. Maybe it doesn’t have to be in the MD.


5. Bookkeeping updates
a. Arrears
A household dropped off a check during the meeting. They will need to make
another payment during September to get under the $2000 threshold. Becky H.
will let them know.
Another household in arrears has established a payment plan and is
currently on track.
A third household asked for a suspension of late fees because they know
they will fall behind for a couple of months but then will be able to catch
up later. We appreciate their proaction!


MONKEY: F&L members should check on arrears around the first of October
when Becky H. will be away.


b. Other
We are maxing out the number of line items we can have in Quickbooks
without paying for an upgrade. This is because we keep changing things
around. Becky hasn’t had time to call Quickbooks support for help with
deleting some unused stuff. She will probably be able to look at this
early next year with the help of our new auditor who is a Quickbooks junkie.


6. Progress on Priority items
a. Master Deed & Bylaws - see #4
b. Reserve Study - Agreement signed, Mary and Paul trying to find a
time to meet.


MONKEY: Amy will ask Mary for an update on the Reserve Study. Becky G. on
behalf of Grounds sent her some updates for the Reserve.
c. Basement egress issue – see #1 - DONE
d. Truck Proposal – on hold while Grounds decides whether we should
continue to have a truck -
Update - it’s too late to sign up a snow removal service for this
year so the truck will be with us at
least another year.
e. Calendar of routine tasks – underway
f. Landlord leases – Lease done. Now we get started with the Rental
Lease Admin Asst. in November.
g. Unit modifications/Documenting build-outs (Master Deed, insurance,
Buildings/ARC process) – the
MD part has already been discussed in a plenary conversation. -
will get covered in MD.


We noted that after the Master Deed work is well in hand, we could review
our Cooler list and develop a new list of priorities.


7. Ongoing items
SriEnergy - Elph negotiated with them and a check with $1000 is in the mail
to us. The expense to repair the Polly & Drew’s roof was about $2700,
which we have already paid. They pushed back on paying in full because we
waited so long to get in touch with them, among other points. Going to
court is not in anyone’s interest so this seems like the best we can do.


Clearly we dropped the ball somewhere along the way. What can we learn
from this? We probably should have paid to have an independent
professional assess Srienergy’s roof repairs. This is a best practice.
MONKEY: Amy will send a summary of the Srienergy response to Buildings
Com (DONE).
MONKEY: As soon as the Srienergy check comes, Becky G. will let our
attorney know, and will deposit it in the Reserve fund.
The bulk of the expense was paid from the Reserve, so Becky will deposit
the $1000 there.


8. Matters arising
• Yi-Miau requested the documents for recent F&L proposal docs for
the Book of Agreements
• Becky will update the Basement Egress proposals with the
amendments, then send to Yi-Miau
• Debbi will do the same with the Skills & Thrills proposal
• Sarah wrote with a question:
I am shopping around for a new homeowners insurance policy and just learned
about "Association Loss Assessment." Evidently, some (many?) HOAs will
assess members for thousands of dollars to repair units that have been
damaged by storms, fire, etc. even though the association has insurance. Is
there a clause in the GO bylaws that addresses this, either by reserving
the right to make these assessments or stating that it won't?


Response: If the homeowner is negligent, we reserve the right to require
the homeowner to pay rather than file a claim. If GO doesn’t have the
money to cover any expense, we always have the right to impose a special
assessment, but it would be equally imposed across the association, not
targeted at one homeowner. But as long as nobody is negligent, we’d file a
claim with GO’s insurance.


MONKEY: Amy will write to Sarah with the response to her question about GO
insurance coverage.


9. Next meetings
* Tues 9/24 (OB away, Amy has work conflict) - CANCELLED. Will find a time
to meet for any urgent items
* Weds 10/9 - ok
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