Finance & Legal minutes: 2004-02-02

Minutes:

Revised F&L Agenda, 2/2/04 7 pm
=================================

Treasury/Bookkeeping
-----------------------
1. Checking account balance.

at end of december: $14,000 or so in the bank. this is still at sunrise (for now), so things are looking good.

2. Accounts receivable status.

we have 4 units that are behind, in 3 cases they're a bit serious. One is just an oversight, and another will be taken care of. Another has about $1000 balance, and haven't had a chat yet. They haven't made payments since they closed. Dale will follow up with this household.

MONKEY: Dale will contact the tardy household that hasn't been contacted yet.

There is a beginning to the process description on the wiki of how to deal with tardy households, before we need to start referring to the bylaws. This should be spelled out clearly for the book-keeper.

Kelly feels that the community should talk more about it. There may be some strong feelings about this one.

We do have a late-fee policy, with a temporary waiver.

MONKEY: Judith will put more thought into what do we do after a household runs into trouble.

3. Review of set up of books by outside firm.
(also 7. 2003 taxes, books, etc.)

5-10 hours, $100 / hour. A small accounting firm might do this for $300.
We also need to close out 2003, which should be done by a professional firm.

Should we hand over stuff to the tax preparer, and just see if they like what we've done, or should we ask for a full review of the books?

Jim Birchler at Milar Associates (sp?) the setup consultation could be about 300-450, or $250 for tax return without a review. A full Review & Tax Preparation would run about $1150. We aren't required to do an audit, but instead just to do a review. We don't have enough time put in to have a full review, so this could cost about $700 or so.

Let's just go with this firm. Let's go with the setup consultation and taxes. We could go with the full review next year.

What is F&L's budget? it's $1500 a year.

4. Transition to Member Bookkeeper. Next steps.

Kathy Bobblit, Judith, Helen, and Amy Harris all went through Quickbooks, and had a ride on the bookshelf ladder. These people are getting ready to transition.

Starting in Feb. there should be a transition as who is doing this.

5. Need new check logger!

Elph is willing to deposit checks. Judith will start taking on the job of logging checks.

6. Money owed from Absolute Title closings (only 2 units pending)

This is a nebulous hole that we aren't clear about, but they happen


8. Shelling out contingency money (esp. CH, landscaping)

we'll skip this topic for now.

Miscellaneous
1. Common house loan
a. Status of loan


We've gotten them everything that we need. They're still waiting for the site survey, and the CH CofO. Some phone tag w/ JD.

b. Loan documents from CDC (survey).

Dale has info from JD (from steering mtg) It turns out that the engineer simply needs to type up a paragraph of the work that they've done. This is such a small piece of work, that it's fallen through the priority cracks. JD is the one who most needs this loan to go through, and this is the piece of paper most needed to fulfill that.

c. Participation in prepayment of loans by household.

There were 11 households that chose to pre-pay. That's $55,000 to reduce the loan.

d. Opening Republic Bank account.

MONKEY: Judith will send Elph an email asking if he's opened the Republic Bank account.

2. Hardship proposal (temp. waiver of assoc. fees in an emergency)

Perhaps the caring cmty can work together with a rep from F&L to help negotiate terms of an agreement. The treasurer has enough to work on to deal with policy, and to have a separation from the treasurer.

MONKEY: Kelly will contact the caring cmty to see if they're willing to work on the waiver process.

Dale brings up the idea that we should have a line item from where the money can pay for these waived fees.

MONKEY: Ask Tammy for last meeting's minutes.

Judith is interested in setting up a "Great Oak Foundation" as a non-profit for people to donate to.

We should differentiate more between waiver & postpone. We also should include that this is allowable

Kelly has an idea that we should separate these two ideas into two proposals. We hold everyone responsible, and yet we can find solutions. (left brain & right brain)

- We need something in black & white. We all are accountable to the community.
- We are open and flexible to find solutions, create a list of tools that the community agrees that the care cmty can use to help solve a problem.

If a household isn't able to pay, then where will their waived funds come from.

TAFE - waiver or extension, the requirements for the extension could be lower than those of the waiver.

The difference between paying late, and getting a one-month extension is 1) approval, and 2) 10% late-fee penalty.

Perhaps this should be rewritten to mention postponement throughout, with a mention of the waiver at the bottom. Postponements can take a hit out of the LTCRF, since that money isn't needed immediately, but will be paid back sometime.

Postponement can be done easily, since we only lose out on the late fees. It should be able to be done automatically. Waiver, labor substitution, etc. must happen in a discussion with the caring cmty. The caring cmty should have certain amt of money budgeted, and can go through that.

We could come up with a form that a household could fill out in order to request the automatic postponement.

MONKEY: All of F&L should contact Jim G with suggestions to add to his writeup.

Kelly proposes that money that comes from late fees should go into an account that would pay for caring cmty. Otherwise, we might need to "raise taxes" at the 6-month review.

4. Bookkeeping for meals.


The CH cmty ought to do the whole meal thing separately from other things. Totally separate acct, and work and billing.

MONKEY: Dale will email CH asking them to handle the meals program (billing)

Budget
1. Ad hoc budget committee (contingency) status.

Becky may begin taking this project on. Perhaps Dave Butler might have an interest on working with this.

2. LTCRF (including info from Sunward).

We should be able to calculate in a spreadsheet what the LTCRF fee for each unit is by summertime.

MONKEY: Sarah & Dave G will work together for the LTCRF spreadsheet.

3. Master deed conflict.

JD is having the lawyers look into this. Sunward is starting to figure this out now.

4. "6-month review"--how? when?

April will be the 6 month anniversary of our budget. How do we want to handle this process? We want to reduce the shock that may happen when this comes up in front of the community.

Sarah feels that we may be going over, but hasn't seen the actual numbers. We may acually be a little ahead, since we haven't paid for much right now, and we've been collecting on the CH, but we haven't been paying for it yet.

5. Discretionary fund process-how? when?

Insurance/liability
1. Report on worker's comp insurance.

Worker's comp will be paid soon.

MONKEY: Kelly will look at the specifics of the truck insurance policy.

2. Processes or documentation needed?
3. Research into truck liability for damage to cars when plowing.

Taxes
1. Report on 1099 forms.

These have been sent out to the feds, and will be sent to the state shortly.

2. YE 2003 taxes.
3. Scio Township property tax questions.

Old Miscellaneous
1. Getting updated project budget from CDC. (Delayed)

Next meeting
--Sunday February 15, 4 pm at Jim Graham's.
--March meetings: Monday March 1 at 7pm, Sunday March 21, 4 pm. Locations?

- Sarah has a DIY kit to be able to inventory everything wrt LTCRF.
- "6-month review"--how? when?

Cooler
1. Review/audit CDC books
2. Review/audit our books
3. Insurance for truck. Coverage for Bobcat? Accidents removing snow? Tractor?
4. LTCRF investing policy
5. When we get a financial consultant, ask them about "partitioning" bank accounts, for budgeting purposes.
6. Revisit insurance boundary information sometime in January when we have a common house
7. Billing CDC for units for which they collect rent
8. Other misc budget/financial policies (see 11/3/03 agenda)
9. Comcast agreement.
10. Great Oak Foundation