Finance & Legal minutes: 2020-05-13

Minutes:

Minutes of 5-13-20 F&L meeting


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


1. Reopening Great Oak - F&L's role / support / ideas

* Having back-ups for key positions, namely, the Bookkeeper, Becky G.
Kathy Boblitt would be able to write checks, enter info into Quickbooks,
call Susan for help. Becky G. will call her to see if she wants any extra
training. And vice-versa; Becky will ask Kathy to train her on how to
deposit checks. Becky hasn’t done this for years.
* The budget process is on the horizon. Mary, Dale, and Becky put the
spreadsheet together, so they could cover for each other.
* The committees most involved in reopening would seem to be CHCom (they
should follow CDC guidelines) and Meals.
* Grounds - Covid breaks down quickly outside, so at worst might have to
wait a day or two to let the virus degrade.
* We talked about the current agreement we have at GO prohibiting people
from blocking meetings remotely. [Debbi later determined that this was
actually a proposed change to the MD and Bylaws, it is not currently
written into the documents.]


2. Common House kitchen/other projects - financial viability - discuss

* We have about $21K in the Kitchen Fund for this project. In addition
there’s another $12K or so that will come from the Reserve (Hobart,
countertops). It seems like this would be a great time to work on the
kitchen project since It won’t impact meals.
* Becky is not currently making quarterly transfers into the Reserve (each
is about $15K) until we see how the economy plays out. We need to make the
transfer once a year, there’s no rule saying we need to do it quarterly.
Legally we have to set aside 10% of operating in a reserve fund, but we do
so much more. In our savings accounts, we have over $30K in addition to
the Kitchen Fund. Becky G. would strongly encourage the kitchen committee
to move on this.
* There’s a need to complete the design and reach agreement, and we’d also
need 3 bids. Even if we asked for 3 bids tomorrow, it would take a couple
of months before they could start. Would still need Township to approve
plans. But once we get into it we get into it, we could redo flooring as
well.
* We are going to see huge unemployment, up to 25%. And the state just
furloughed employees 1 day a week. So there are people who are not going to
have a lot of money.
* Marta pointed out that there will be no positive interest in investments
in the near term.
* Affordability group met today. Pam, Catherine, Justin, and Glenn.
Assuming they will report out at Steering soon.
* Give Kitchen Committee the goal of nailing down the plan by the end of
the summer. It would be a really good thing for the community to decide
what we want.
* F&L encourages them to take the next steps in the process, including
bids, but they’ll have to check in with the community and F&L before moving
ahead. By then we’ll know more from the Affordability Committee. 3 things
are running in parallel for Steering to track. Cost of labor may go down.
* F&L should remind committees that we would like them to not do their
discretionary improvements this year from the operating budget, unless it’s
a safety issue. E.g. Grounds needs to stabilize the new slope.
* There’s no way to know how our community will fare in the next 6-12
months.
* Becky distinguishes between operating and other funds we have. Not a
contradiction.


3. Bookkeeping updates

* Tax return, audit update - nothing to report.
* Arrears
* A household has been falling further behind, will be at $980 at the
end of the month. Phone calls and texts are not working. Becky H. will
check their cubby to see if it seems to be monitored and we’ll leave a note
alerting them that we will soon need to place a lien. If that doesn’t work
we can try mailing a letter.
* The cost to a household of placing a lien (fee + attorney time) is
about $200. It has gone up a lot. We are wondering if we need to talk to
the community about both the threshold for liens and whether the community
should absorb this cost. To protect GO’s long-term financial interests we
still need to place liens. We’ll keep monitoring this since we only have
two significant arrears and two payment plans.
* We are keeping July 15 on our radar for the household with serious
arrears. Steering has taken this on.
* Other
* Becky G. got all bills paid today, and will probably get reports out
in the next few days. Then will send info to tax and audit people
* Susan had her second baby early. Strange in Covid times to be in
hospital without support. But they are both ok. Everyone should have
their statements by now.

4. Ongoing projects

* Master Deed & Bylaws - Debbi is thinking about it.
* Insurance agent convo - move to Zoom? No. Not high on people’s list of
priorities. Might be too stressful. Amy will ask Gail to take it off the
stack and put it on our Cooler doc.
* Other - Amy to add to cooler list: explore whether we can do online
association fee payments. Might make it a lot easier for the forgetful
people.

5. Matters arising

* We talked about private property signs. Do they draw attention to the
paths? Would it have the opposite effect? Or does it help with
liability? Rick agreed with this. Starting early with this conversation
would give us time to talk about it at our leisure. Becky will take this
back to Grounds.


6. June meeting / work hours

* If it's a one month season, we keep our jobs the same.
* F&L will meet on June 10.
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