Finance Committee Minutes

Jan 17, 2012

 

 

The Finance Committee of the Falls Run Community Homeowners’ Association met this afternoon in the Center.

 

Personnel in Attendance: Dan Owens, John Balducci, Don Horan, Harry Ravert, Ted Wessel, John Frisch, and Casey Naatjes. Don McCreary and Dan Augustine were invited participants due to the main agenda item..

 

Repository for Budget Request Forms (BFR)

 

The committee dedicated this meeting to a discussion of this issue. Don McCreary, as the Center Committee Chair, expressed a desire to have one place where interested committee members and Board member could go to see the status of BFRs.

 

The "shape" of the Status attribute resulted in the following categories:

Pending Committee Deliberation

Pending Financial Committee Review

Funded

Not Funded

 

The Funding category, would have responses such as:

 

The last category would indicate the date the Board decided to "Not Fund" the BRF.

 

Initially, we focused on filing all BFR on the web site. However, Ted W observed that many documents were already being stored on Armstrong Connect. The committee recognized the value of storing BFRs there.

 

Dan O observed that some BRF might contain proprietary information from a vendor. We agreed that all committees should ensure that proprietary information would be protected so as not to harm a cooperating vendor in the competitive bidding process. That said, BFR should contain a not to exceed cost estimate.

 

The committee is not attempting to work backward to file old BFR.

 

Interest Penalties for Late Payment of HOA Fees

 

Ted W. noted that the State may, during various years, specify a lower interest rate than the one in use at the time. The committee asked Ted W to communicate our requirement to AMS to assign interest rates that were consistent with State law.

 

Transitioning to a New Activity Director

 

Casey reported that he and John Frisch are working actively with Doreen Barnes to transfer day-to-day Center financial postings to her. This is working smoothly.

 

Doreen has check signing authority and possess a debit card already.

 

Adjournment: 5:00 pm.

 

Casey Naatjes

Chair

 


 

Release Statement

for

Ann Jones

 

                                                                                             December 21, 2011

This statement is based on a thorough examination of the financial records for the Social Checking Account of the FRCA Center.

 

The central basis for this release is that the Finance Committee has participated in every bank statement reconciliation for many years. Our participant for most of those reconciliations was and is John Frisch. I have participated in three or four of these reconciliations over the last three years as well. The bottom line is that we have always reconciled to the bank statement balance throughout Ann's tenure. Furthermore, a member of the Finance Committee has consistently closed completed social/travel events throughout this period of time, submitting journal vouchers to Armstrong Management  Services (AMS) to report these closures. This process ensures that the Finance Committee is well informed of all deposits and disbursements from the social checking account. Finally, I have personally examined every deposit and check written since the last bank reconciliation as of 11/30/2011. The register balance of $13,445.33 is accepted.

 

This release is issued, fully recognizing that there is a variance between the general ledger account balance at AMS for the social checking account and the balance maintained in Quickbooks. There are a number of reasons for this difference.

  1. All social and/or travel events are initially funded within the social checking account until the event(s) are completed. This can take several months. In general, revenues are collected before the event(s) occur and the expenses lag behind the revenues. For example, there were 25 open events at the close of November 2011. Revenues for those events totaled $38,517.63 while expenses were $20,513.82. The difference of $18,003.81 is included in the Quickbooks balance, but it will not be communicated to AMS in the form of a journal voucher until these 25 events are closed. Of course, there will be other new events as well.

  2. The Center has a budget line of $12,000 per year. These expenses are paid from Quickbooks and recorded there on a daily basis. Journal Vouchers are submitted to AMS after the close of each month.

  3. It also happens that AMS issues a check to the Center, but the check is not deposited until the next business month. In this case, Quickbooks will be "behind" AMS on the transaction.

  4. Finally, there is a long-standing variance between the AMS balance and the Quickbooks balance. We know the Quickbooks balance is correct, we simply must do a better job of reporting closed events and Center expenses to AMS. The is a precondition that pre-dates Ann's tenure.

 

 

C. S. Naatjes

Chair, Finance Committee