Finance & Legal minutes: 2004-12-06

Minutes:

Fincance & Legal Minutes
12/06/04

Met at Willie & Katie's at 7 p.m.
Present: Heather, Adi, Sarah, Katie, Becky, Dale, Jim G., Amy H., [[Jenny]], Willie, Ted, Judith, Amy N.

'''AGENDA'''
1. meals float of about $3,500 and terms of repayment
2. Issue with the master deed and how it views garage ownership -- or doesn't. (Amy H & [[Jenny]])
3. we need an attorney
3a. TS easement question
4. [[RestructuringFandL]]
5. discuss and triage [[FandLCurrentTopics]]
6. catchup on annual budget review progress
7. LTCRF check-in
8. budget question: to rollover or not.
9. trade CDC rent for Clark's riding mower?

'''MONKEYS:'''
HEATHER will check with Patti about how to pay the money to [[GOCA]] - deposit into account or cut a check or ??
JENNY will contact Bob Meisner (sp?) and engage him to do the Master Deed amendment work re: garages for GO;
AMY H. will call Scott at Absolute Title to see if he can recommend another attorny with condo law experience/knowledge;
ELPH will call attny Susan Morrison to see what her condo experience is;
???? - will provide LTCRF total to [[Elph]];
???? - create a brief summary of the info and issues members need to be aware of when selling their garages and post it on the wiki

'''1. meals float of about $3,500 and terms of repayment'''
- Heather and Amy N. proposed that the meals program use funds it collects from late fees to pay back the $3,500 in start-up money it received from [[GOCA]];
- The meals program wil pay a minimum of $25 a month, but may pay more if more is colleceted in late fees;
- The meals program will keep track of how much they have paid over time.
- Heather will check with Patti about how to pay the money - deposit into account or cut a check or ??
- if the amount of late fees collected drops significantly at some point and meeting the $25 minimum is a hardship for the program they will re-negotiate the pay-back plan with F&L.

'''2. Issue with the master deed and how it views garage ownership -- or doesn't. (Amy H & [[Jenny]])'''
- [[Jenny]] contacted Scott Bresher (sp?) at Absolute [[title]]. See [[EmailExcerpt]] for details.
- it appears that in condo settings garages are often defined as LCEs that are "assigned" to members; as a result the legal mumbo-jumbo for selling a garage is different than for selling a unit.
- looking at GOs deed, this does indeed appear to be the case. See GOs Master Deed, Article 4, sections 2 & 4 at: http://www.gocoho.org/documents/mdeed.pdf.
- A suggestion was made that perhaps George and Susan's attorney may want to talk to Scott directly to clarify their concerns.
- F&L needs to get a lawyer to amend our master deed to include a list of garage "assignments" and to outline the process for updating the list whenever a garage changes hands; the sooner the better, because there are several households interested in selling their garages; [[Jenny]] will contact Bob Meisner (sp?) and engage him to do this work for GO; if he cannot get to us in a timely manner we will go with another attorny.
- F&L needs to make sure that members who want to sell their garage are aware that they will need to check with their mortgage lenders re: how to handle the sale; depending on if your garage was included in the mortgage or not the lender may have different concerns;
- F&L will not find the answer to this issue for each household at GO as each situation may be different but,
- F&L will create a brief summary of the info and issues members need to be aware of when selling their garages and post it on the wiki; this summary should include references to, and excerpts from, the Master Deed and any relevant MD amendments so as to facilitate the sale of garages by individual members;
- FYI - there is a list/map of garage assignments in the unofficial BOA;

'''3. we need an attorney'''
- we need an attny to ammend our master deed and address an easement issue with TS.
- Let's use Bob Meisner(sp?) whenever we can; he wrote the book on condo law in Michigan.
- He is working for TS right now so there may be occasions when there is a conflict of interest, in that case we will use an alternate attorney;
- Advantage to using Meisner is that he has done work with all three cohousing communites on Little Lake Dr. and is familiar with issues unique to cohousing;
-J enny will contact Bob Meisner (sp?) and engage him to do the Master Deed amendment work re: garages for GO;
- Amy H. will call Scott at Absolute Title to see if he can recommend another attrny with condo law experience/knowledge;
- [[Elph]] will call attny Susan Morrison to see what her condo experience is;
- When calling the attnys ask about: rates, availability/turn-around time, experience with condo law.
- Report back what you find to the committee via e-mail so we can move forward with engaging an attny before the next F&L meeting on Dec. 19;

'''3a. TS easement question'''
- TS altered the original plan for the tranch on the west end in order to preserve the big oak tree; they need to legally acknowledge this shift with an easement agreement with GO;
- Steering was asked to approve the revised easement and agreed that a lawyer needs to review this in order to protect GO's interests; see item 1 in the TS easement for specifics;

'''4. Restructuring F&L'''
- a first draft of a proposal to restructure F&L was presented to the committee; the proposal creates a work position called "[[Treasurer]]" and a sub-committee of F&L called "Financial Operations"; see link here [[RestructuringFandL]];
- The F&L committee has found itself focused on many detailed issues that have distracted it from maintaing a bigger picture awareness of policy issues and an overall management strategy for GOs finances;
- The [[Treasurer]] position would work closely with the member bookkeeper, general bookkeeper and check-writer to make sure GOs accounting system is working well; they would also review the budget on a regular basis and alert the committee to any developing deficits or other issues that need to be addressed; this person will take direction from and report to the F&L committee;
- Here are four reasons for restructuring F&L in this way:
1. Moving oversight of the day-to-day financial operations of GO into a sub-committee of F&L makes sense structurally;
2. F&L has a broader mandate than just financial issues; by creating a financially focused sub-group, people interested in that aspect of the committee's work can focus their energy there, without getting involved in the other issues the committee addresses and vice-versa.
3. By delegating oversight of GOs day-to-day financial details to a sub-group the larger committee will be able to better track, and focus on, the broad range of issues that fall under its mandate;
4. Creating a coordinator position to track GOs accounting system and review the budget will improve communication, problem solving and trouble-shooting around GO accounting issues.
- A suggestion was made to include an LTCRF manager in this sub-group.
- it would be useful to check-in again with Patti and Kathy B. when setting-up the Tresurer position to see if they have any suggestions for how to structure things based on their experience as bookkeepers;
- How does BARC fit in?
BARC is a temporary committee that forms each year to assist the community in reviewing and setting its budget. But there is prep work that needs to be done over the course of the year that BARC won't do:
- budget reports given to committees on a regular basis so they can track their spending;
- regular treasurer reports to the community;
- A couple of BARC members (Sarah and Becky and ???) will work on writing-up a budget process for next year using this year's experience as a guide; one goal will be to start the budget review process earlier;

'''5. discuss and triage [[FandLCurrentTopics]]'''
- The group reviewed the F&L " To Do" list and prioritized items as High, medium and low; see FandLTopics for details;

'''6. catchup on annual budget review progress'''
- report from BARC members present: the budget meeting on Dec. 1 went well; committees should be working on amending their budgets based on input during the meeting and contact with members before Jan. 5;
- committees were encouraged to post answers to questions raised at Dec. 1 meeting to talk, at least one committee has;
- BARC will meet again just prior to the Jan. 5 community meeting to review the amended budget and go over how to organize the meeting;

'''7. LTCRF check-in'''
- [[Elph]] reports that the LTCRF process is underway; they will need to know how much money GO has in its LTCRF fund for the next step;

'''8. budget question: to rollover or not'''
- need to clarify how this works both on the "books" level and conceptually so committees know how to reflect unspent operating expenses in their reports and request to the communty;
- we can work on this over e-mail and have a full discussion and make a decision at the Dec. 19 F&L meeting;
- BARC or F&L will need to give a brief clarifying exlanation at the Jan. 5 meeting; F&L should send an explanation out to committees before Christmas;

'''9. trade CDC rent for Clark's riding mower?'''
- That's not really how it works from our perspective, we would end up writing a check to CDC fro teh cost of the mower;
- Grounds can decide whether they want to buy the mower or not and include the expense in their budget request;