Finance & Legal minutes: 2020-03-24

Minutes:

Minutes of 3-24-20 F&L Meeting - via ZOOM


Committee members attending: Becky G., Becky H., Debbi, Sharon, Amy
Guest: Marta


NEW MONKEYS


MONKEY: Amy will request 15 mins for Debbi to present at a community
meeting soon - getting a sense of whether the community wants us to do a
needs assessment around COVID-19 impacts on people’s financial status and
the impact on the community.


MONKEY: Becky H. will send out a message to Talk to remind people that F&L
is happy to work with households who are having financial difficulties to
make a payment plan, waive late fees, etc.


MONKEY: Debbi will ask Mary to put the committee spending topic on the
agenda for the joint Steering/Covid meeting this coming Saturday.


MONKEY: Amy will request time at one of the April community meetings to
present about the arrears - 20 minutes - Debbi will present


MONKEY: Becky H. will draft an email to the community giving them a heads
up about the arrears and will send it to committee members for edits.




1. COVID-19 Impacts
1. Households in financial difficulty


We should get ahead of the curve on households experiencing financial
issues, such as non-salaried workers. We don’t know who in the community
will be affected and if they have additional resources. Should we do some
investigation and think about help we can offer?


GO had an Affordability Committee in the early years. The group worked as
“matchmakers” with others who could help; the group didn’t directly handle
money. Should we revive it? Some households will get money from the feds
that they don’t need. Could they put it in a pool of cash to help
households in need? What if households could get the reserve part of their
monthly fee waived for a while? Reserve payments can add up to a third or a
half of association fees. Becky could hold off transferring funds to the
reserve for several months. We’d only lose a small bit of interest since
we earn so little already.


Could the Caring Com help with this?
Send out a survey to understand what the situation looks like?
Or a subgroup could form (not necessarily F&L members).


We could bring this up at the April 1 community meeting.


MONKEY: Amy will request 15 mins for Debbi to present at a community
meeting soon - getting a sense of whether the community wants us to do a
needs assessment around COVID-19 impacts on people’s financial status and
the impact on the community.


MONKEY: Becky H. will send out a message to Talk to remind people that F&L
is happy to work with households who are having financial difficulties to
make a payment plan, waive late fees, etc.


Marta shared that there’s talk about the government easing mortgage
payments for up to 12 months if a household is losing income. Could we
match that by not taking association fee payments for a time? It’s
complicated.


We never did the paperwork for FHA mortgages so that’s not a factor at GO.


If we have a lot of households who need to go onto a payment plan, we
should look at the operating budget for expenses we can freeze.


How do we balance community financial needs with individuals not wanting to
take a bath when the market is down.


How much buffering can we afford? We have a lot of money in our savings
accounts.
It might be prudent to send a message out to committees not to spend
improvement money until we can have a community conversation about this.
We could talk about it at the Steering Committee meeting on Saturday (Covid
meeting on Saturday at 11.)


MONKEY: Debbi will ask Mary to put the committee spending topic on the
agenda for the joint Steering/Covid meeting this coming Saturday.


2. Liability issues, e.g. exercise room, hot tub, etc. Is community at
risk?


F&L doesn’t anticipate any liability as long as we post a sign that says
only one person or household can use the exercise room or hot tub at a time
and that they have to sanitize it before and after use. A sign in the room
with clear instructions and supplies provided for cleaning. We’re not a
community gym; the exercise room is tiny and no promises are made.


Marta would like the Exercise Room sub-committee to take this on; she
doesn’t have the bandwidth. Perhaps the most frequent users could take the
lead?


Hot tub: CDC says it’s ok. Hot water and chemicals can deactivate
viruses. It’s outside. Could provide access from outside? No, F&L
recommended that this not be done; going through the Common House will
limit use to people who have been trained to think about sanitizing, also a
safety issue for kids. Only one person or one household can use the hot
tub at a time (same for exercise room).


Posting instructions gets us off the hook.


3. F&L’s April mini-season jobs:
Convener 2 hrs
Counted members 2 hrs
Bookkeeper 8 hrs
Check depositor 3 hrs
Reserve Study 1 hr
2 Budget positions not included for April
Admin Asst position not included for April


2. Bookkeeping updates


1. Arrears


A household is a month behind; Becky G. sent an email reminder.


Another household has reached $2700 in arrears. They received a letter from
GO’s lawyer per community agreement. The letter gives 30 days to get
arrears below $2000 before court proceedings begin. The household was in
touch with Becky G. today and they do not have funds to pay.


The Covid situation really changes things. HUD has a moratorium on
foreclosures for 60 days starting March 18. The Governor has extended the
timeline for taking action on tax foreclosures.


We weren’t able to inform the community about the situation at the last
community meeting because the letter had not yet been received by the
household when the meeting took place. We wanted to tell the community in
person, not by email.


Under the current Covid circumstances, we would like to consider setting
this aside for 4 months, which would add about $1600 to the arrears,
bringing it to $4200.


MONKEY: Amy will request time on one of the April community meetings about
the arrears - 20 minutes, on Zoom - Debbi will present
* We will not name names. People can ask F&L for the names.
* Ask community for permission to hold off having the attorney proceed for
4 months during the virus crisis
* Lay out the history and the current financial picture - let the community
know how much is owed and will be owed after 4 months, and that the
household has been in arrears over $2000 multiple times in the past
* We do not want to brainstorm solutions in the meeting. If people want to
help, contact the household directly
* If the community is not happy with the agreement and the consequences of
taking a household to court, a group could form to bring a different
proposal forward
Would it help to send out an email ahead of the meeting - laying out the
parameters - so people aren’t blindsided with it during a Zoom meeting?
Give them a little heads up.
MONKEY: Becky H. will draft an email to the community giving them a heads
up about the arrears and will and send it to committee members for edits.


2. Becky G. sent an email to the tax prep firm letting them know that we
want them to prepare GO’s taxes and do the audit, and asked what they
need. Hasn’t heard back yet.


3. Monkey Review - no changes
MONKEY: Debbi will send a draft of MD changes to Elph and Patti, with a cc
to Sharon for her use with the definitions doc
MONKEY: Sharon will take a first whack at a definitions doc to accompany
the Master Deed and Bylaws
MONKEY: Debbi to go over F&L’s list of follow-up items from Skills and
Thrills weekend pasted into last meeting’s agenda
MONKEY: Debbi will send an email to the household who hasn’t provided a
copy of their lease saying we really need a copy of the lease within a week
or we’ll ask the lawyer to follow up with them.
MONKEY: Kathy will send us copies of what she has. Most people are using
their own variations of leases. Kathy made note of dates of expiration.
MONKEY: Debbi will send a thank you to each along with a note that they
should use the GO lease template when they renew their leases, or they can
use their own lease, but F&L will send it to the attorney to review and
they’ll be charged for his time to review. (Not expensive.)
MONKEY: Debbi will identify a date by which chimneys should be cleaned
MONKEY: The committee will compile a list of known unit modifications,
then find out what’s missing


4. Master Deed updates - check-in
* Becky H. & Amy are finalizing the mortgage info form


5. Other New items arising - none


6. Review ongoing items - none


7. Next meeting: April 22
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