Finance & Legal minutes: 2003-11-23

Minutes:

11/23/03 F&L meeting minutes
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Attendance: Dale, Jim G, Sarah, Judith, Willie


MONKEY - Willie will ask the Amys about the jobs that we didn't submit to them.
MONKEY: Perhaps Kelly could start producing this information, and
perhaps Buildings will want to take this over. Insurance claims
may actually start with the buildings committee.
MONKEY: Dale will contact Elph about how our cash flow looks like.
MONKEY: Sarah will look into this, what's involved, and ask Elph
how much has gone to which people.
MONKEY: Kelly should follow-up on insurance & liability, and report back
MONKEY: Sarah & Dale will work together to assemble presentation of contingency
MONKEY: Sarah or Dale will get spot to present contingency info at next meeting
MONKEY: Dale will send the spreadsheet out to go-finance.
MONKEY: Willie will publish this on the website.
MONKEY: Willie will also print this, so that each household has a copy.
MONKEY: Dale wants a few minutes for "board approval" of Comcast agreement
MONKEY: Dale will ask Elph for a treasurer's report
MONKEY: Judith will contact Kelly to make sure that she can attend.


Common house / garage / truck loan (Dave, Sarah & Lisa)
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Sarah is still gathering info from some deadbeat people.
JD would like the loan to happen soon (4-6 weeks quite a few weeks ago)


Progress on LTCRF, including work being done by Buildings (Kelly)
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They are working on coming up with a "standard model" unit, and come up with numbers based on that, and then they would compute the differences of each variance based upon that.


Master deed conflict on windows, doors, etc. (Dale, info from Sunward)
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One part says that the Association is not responsible for doors and windows of private buildings. Another part a little later says that the association is responsible. These may or may not be in conflict, because there is some odd "legalese" language in the master deed.

There is a deductible ($1000 for the association, typically less than that for indiv. units) which comes into play, and perhaps we should mold any possible change so that it makes the most sense with how the insurance companies define and bill for these details.


Review list of jobs from Amy N (see below in section)
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MONTHLY:
Accounts receivable, check gatherer & recorder
Check double-checker & depositor
Book-keeper's helper could take care of tasks, to help with efficiency

PERENNIAL:
Bookkeeping
Treasurer
Insurance point-person / Taxes & Insurance coordinator / Insurance Review
Finance convener
Meals billing (this might not go to F&L)
Investment manager (implements policy)
LTCRF investing policy (policy that the investment mgr would follow)
Annual budget process coordinator (point person, with committee support)

Finance operating (this is convener)
Review/audit our books - event that is coordinated by treasurer or F&L

MONKEY - Willie will ask the Amys about the jobs that we didn't submit to them.

There should be an annual budget person, so that the information can be gathered in a uniform manner.


Progress in setting up books, flow of deposits, statements, transition &
training of others (Dale)
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Having problems getting the checks of initial association fees from the title company. Elph is keeping up on this, and has sent a list of the checks that we have received. Statements are happening, Dale will do one more cycle, and needs process that takes in the money before he feels comfortable handing off to someone else.



"Operations manuals" for F&L jobs (including forms in PDF)
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should be assembled for various tasks. These should be published on the Wiki. We should document what we do.


Insurance claim information on the web & printed
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What do we do when something happens to your LCE? Every household should have a copy when there is a (gas leak, water pipes leak, roof leaks). Do we call JD in the middle of the night, or send email to someone.

This is essentially a triage. Everyone will most likely misplace their copy, though everyone should get one, and

MONKEY: Perhaps Kelly could start producing this information, and perhaps Buildings will want to take this over. Insurance claims may actually start with the buildings committee.


Association fee policies--getting on the agenda, writing up (Jim G on
late fees)
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Jim's been busy moving recently, but he's going to get on it soon.


Billing CDC for units for which they collect rent
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CDC and GOCA will need to sit down someday and figure out where the things transition, such as insurance, water, and taxes.

Do we need to worry about this now, because of cash-flow? This is probably somehwere close to 700-800 per month. Although it could be lower, since households would pay lower initial month association fees. We could press this to happen sooner or later based on what our cash flow looks like.

MONKEY: Dale will contact Elph about how our cash flow looks like.


Other misc budget/financial policies
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skipped for now. (Automatic increase of 3% each year, though we have time to think about this)


1099 to childcare by 2/04
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We only have 3 months on this. Mary King knows how to do this. We'd probably want to keep these records on the books.

MONKEY: Sarah will look into this, what's involved, and ask Elph how much has gone to which people.

This needs to go out sometime in Jan or Feb.


Insurance regarding childcare, other workers (Kelly)
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We now have much more to lose as far as liability.

MONKEY: Kelly should follow-up on insurance & liability, and report back


Contingency budget review, annotation (Dale)
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Out of the 8-900,000 we had in the contingency, we spent

We end up with $250,000 to spend on the rest of our community. 150 has already been allocated to spend on the CH. We are spending about $400 a month on the unsold B, simply in interest. Many bids in the CH were locked down, although there are some nebulous allowances such as HVAC.

JD is optimistic that we would not be resposible for paying for the drainage by building 4.

If we do run over allowances, it comes out of our share, it's not split.

We've been getting a fair amount of credit that happened in our construction, but have no benefit for us, but are applicable for "phase 2", aka: Touchstone. Some of these things are sidewalks, roads, grading.

Our project is paying 14% of the "soft costs". Many times, this is up toward 20%. These are professional fees, marketing and organizational expenses. These are service fees, and not neccessarily product fees.

We should start an "unofficial" Wiki site, to publish this information. We should put together a "simple" version, with pie-charts, and some sections collapsed. If people are more interested in how these things break down, then they can follow a link to more information. These details should be annotized, for further remarks on the reasoning behind it.

MONKEY: Sarah & Dale will work together to assemble presentation of contingency
MONKEY: Sarah or Dale will get spot to present contingency info at next meeting


Budget, posting on website & announcing same on go-talk
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We haven't seen the whole thing all in one place yet, so the community would be interested in seeing this.

MONKEY: Dale will send the spreadsheet out to go-finance.
MONKEY: Willie will publish this on the website.
MONKEY: Willie will also print this, so that each household has a copy.


Status of Comcast agreement, getting it on the agenda at an upcoming
meeting
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MONKEY: Dale wants a few minutes for "board approval" of Comcast agreement


Book-keeping:
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MONKEY: Dale will ask Elph for a treasurer's report


Next meeting:
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We'll meet next on monday, Dec. 1st.

MONKEY: Judith will contact Kelly to make sure that she can attend.


Cooler
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- Update list of point people
- Review/audit CDC books
- Review/audit our books
- Insurance for truck. Coverage for Bobcat? Accidents removing snow? Tractor?
- LTCRF investing policy
- Operation Manuals


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The goal of the Finance and Legal Committee is to address the financial
and legal concerns of the community.

Specifically, on the financial side we assist the community with
budgeting and financial planning, manage the investment of reserves,
prepare taxes and corporate reports, secure insurance, and make periodic
reports to the community on the financial health of the community. On
the legal side, we work with legal experts to provide information to the
community on contracts, agreements, and other issues as directed by the
community. We also make information available to community members
within these two areas (such as you will find below).

We serve the community, and seek to do so in a timely, accurate,
professional, pleasant, informative way. We appreciate and seek
feedback, and will correct errors quickly when notified. We will
emphasize fiscal responsibility and adherence to community values.

Because of the importance of the information we handle, we will try to
have more than one person at any given time who can perform a task, and
will backup data. We will create and make public operation manuals for
the tasks, documenting procedures so there is continuity and consistency
in service. We will seek efficient ways of performing tasks, and
maintain simple methods as fall backs.