{news} minutes October 2004 SCC meeting,part 1 of 3

[edubrule]

Minutes--October 26, 2004 SCC meeting, Fisk Hall, Wesleyan University

 

Attendees:

1. Central Connecticut chapter:  Vincent Maruffi, Steve Krevisky

2. Fairfield chapter:  Ed Friend

3. Hamden chapter:  Aaron Gustafson, Francis Braunlich

4. Hartford chapter:  Ed DuBrule (NV),  Lynah (voting for Hartford chapter and for Women's Caucus), Mike DeRosa, Barbara Barry DeRosa, Chris Reilly (NV)

5. New London chapter:  Andy Derr

6. Northwest chapter:  Elizabeth Brancato

7. Shoreline chapter:  Colin Bennett

8. Tolland chapter:  Tim McKee (facilitator)

NV=non-voting

A quorum was not reached until 8pm.  Reports were done from 7:15-8pm.

 

A.  PRELIMINARIES.

The agenda item "Comments/approval of September SCC minutes" was not taken up.

 

Treasurer's report (read by Ed DuBrule):

"The filing with the state for the third quarter was completed last Thursday.

 

"Our receipts were $260. $160 of that was from monthly contributions.

Our total expenses were $190.60. $85 of that was for credit card processing. That number includes a $50 annual fee as well as $35 for the month. We also paid out $51 for the phone service at the office in Hartford and $51 for the electric service at the office in Hartford. Rounding out the expenses was $3 for the toll free phone number.

 

"Coming up soon we will owe another $250 for rent on the office in Hartford.

 

"Currently we have a balance of $1,318.

 

"I want to thank Chris Reilly for doing the inventory for the assessment for the office in Hartford. This is due on November 1st and is required by the city of Hartford for determining property taxes on the office.

 

"As always please consider being involved in the Fundraising and Budget Committees.

 

"For more information on the CT Green Party Finances you can call me at 860 379-0632, email me at green at spazmo.com or look at this webpage: http://www.kirajoy.com/CTGP/CTGP_Treasurer.html

 

"Bob Eaton

CT Green Party Treasurer"

 

     Chris said that his inventory of the Hartford office showed $1800 (overall assessment) but with depreciation taxes will be levied on $539.

 

Unreimbursed expenditures of Chris Reilly.   The Executive Committee requested that Chris make a presentation to the SCC tonight on his unreimbursed expenditures.  During his presentation, Chris responded to the questions raised in the Women's Caucus proposal on those unreimbursed expenditures (Appendix 1).   That proposal includes the following questions:

 

"1) why Chris Reilly, founder of the GPC and former treasurer, did not communicate the presence of the loans to at least two of the co-chairs (Tom and Justine), despite his obvious knowledge of GPC process;  

"2) why Chris wasn't repaid (if the loans were regarded as short-term and 'informal' by Bruce and Chris) once there was income from a fundraising letter;

"3) why half of the rent for the Hartford office wasn't paid by the Hartford chapter, even if the SCC half was paid through a loan from Chris."

 

     Chris passed out an Excel spreadsheet listing expenditures he made and for which he has not been reimbursed.  The spreadsheet lists 17 expenditures;  the earliest is dated 4/1/03 and the latest is dated 3/12/04.  Six of the expenditures are rent payments for the Hartford office.  The rent payments range from $150 to $800 and total $2,650.  Ten of the expenditures are for envelopes, postage, or printing.  They range from $6.29 to $370 and total $855.82.  Finally, there is a $35 check made out to Network Solutions for domain registration renewal for the CTGP website.   The total of the unreimbursed expenditures is $3540.82.

     Chris passed around, for viewing by all SCC attendees, a cancelled check, cash register receipt from OfficeMax, receipt from the US Postal Service, or similar documentation for each of the seventeen entries on the spreadsheet.  Tim, the facilitator, asked if any attendees had any questions relating to the receipts and cancelled checks that Chris had passed around--no one did.

     Chris said that the November 14, 2000 SCC meeting had decided that the state party would pay half the rent and half the utilities for the Hartford office.   At this time the rent was $400 per month.  For months after that the CTGP treasurer wrote a check for the entire rent for the office and made an accounting entry for the Hartford chapter's half of the rent (this accounting entry was made in the Hartford chapter's "setaside" account, also known as the "chapter balance").  During this period Chris sent the treasurer a reminder that the rent was coming due, the treasurer sent Chris the check, and Chris brought the check to the landlord.

     Then in February 2003 Bruce Crowder was elected treasurer.  In early April 2003 Chris learned from Bruce that the rent hadn't been paid for two months.  Due to problems with bank paperwork, Bruce had been unable to sign CTGP checks.  Bruce agreed that Chris should pay two months' rent ($800--March and April), and Chris did this.  Later the landlord informed Chris that they had received a $400 check from Chris Nelson, the former treasurer, so that the $800 paid by Chris became rent for April and May.  Chris straightened out the problems at the bank with the paperwork.

     Chris said that in 2000 the CTGP had raised over $25,000, including nearly $9,000 from the annual fundraising letter.  In 2001 almost $15,000 had been raised, including close to  $10,000 from the letter.  But in 2002, after Chris had stopped being treasurer, a fundraising letter did not go out.  Thus in early 2003, when Bruce took over the treasurer position, the party checking account held only $2000 or less.  It required about $2,000 in postage and printing costs to mail the annual letter, so Chris proposed paying the office rent for a month so that CTGP funds could be used for the mailing.  Some progress was made toward putting together the maiing--Ed Savage worked on merging the chapters' lists.  The next month Chris e-mailed Bruce and again offered to pay the office rent.

     Chris distributed an excerpt from the minutes of the 7/21/03 Executive Committee meeting.  Chris' handout included, in part, the following:

 

5. Hiring of staffperson(s).  A proposal submitted by Tim McKee to the Executive Committee is appended ....

     The Executive Committee will need to write a job description  ...  Due to the Connecticut Green Party's low bank account balance, it would make sense to hire this person, perhaps, as an independent contractor, though reservations were expressed as to whether progressive organizations should be using independent contractors ....

     The Executive Committee would post the position opening/job description ....  The Executive Committee would interview candidates and make a recommendation as to hiring to the SCC.  ...  A proposal will be submitted by the Executive Committee to the July SCC meeting.

 

6. Fundraising.  The annual fundraising letter (sent out in September last year) might bring in $2500 (a guesstimate).  Perhaps, because of the low bank account balance of the Connecticut Green Party, postage could be spent on sending the letter initially to 1000 names.  With donations received from this initial mailing, the rest of the names could be mailed to.  Or a loan from a Party member could be sought for postage costs.

     Chapters should be encouraged to hold fundraisers, sharing revenues with the state.

 

Chris pointed out, in particular, the sentence above which reads "Or a loan from a Party member could be sought for postage costs."

 

     Chris distributed an excerpt from the minutes of the June 24, 2003 SCC meeting.  The attendees at that meeting included all members of the Executive Committee (co-chairs Mike DeRosa, Tom Sevigny, and Justine McCabe;  secretary Ed DuBrule, and treasurer Bruce Crowder).   Chris' handout included, in part, the following:

 

5  Treasurer's report.   The Party bank account has holds $2,200;  $1200 is owed in debt.  In a typical month, there is $400 in operating expenses but only $300 comes in.   

 

Chris said that the $1,200 owed in debt referred to the rent payments he had made thus far.  At this meeting, much to Chris' embarrassment, Mike publicly thanked Chris for paying the rent.  Other minutes from this period also mention a debt in the Treasurer's report, Chris said, though a calculation may need to be made.  Tom read the Treasurer's report in one of those minutes.

     Eventually a mailing was done to 1000 names.  It had a poor financial return.  It raised at most $1500 but cost nearly $1000 to do.  No follow-up mailing was done.  Therefore Chris did not ask for reimbursement at this time.

     Bob Eaton was elected treasurer in March 2004.  By this time the office rent had risen to $500 per month.  One of the rent checks on Chris' spreadsheet is for $150--Bob wrote a check for $350 and Chris wrote a check for $150.

     Ed DuBrule said that he had sent an e-mail to Bruce a few days ago, asking if Bruce could come to tonight's meeting, but received no reply.  Bruce had told the Executive Committee previously that he is now very busy with graduate school and a new job.  Ed said that he has multiple copies of an e-mail from Bruce relating to these matters which he could distribute.

     Question 1 above asks "why Chris Reilly ... did not communicate the presence of the loans to at least two of the co-chairs (Tom and Justine), despite his obvious knowledge of GPC process".  Chris said there has never been clear process in the CT Green Party;  there has been talk of putting together a policy-and-procedures manual, but no one has ever done it.   (Elizabeth reminded us that the July 2004 SCC meeting passed a proposal on financial management.)  Chris pointed out that he worked with the treasurer, Bruce, in these matters.  Andy asked if Mike and Ed, who had been on the Executive Committee during these events, had known about Chris' spending his own money.  Mike said that he had been generally aware of the situation.  Ed said that he had been aware that there was a problem involving Chris' spending his own money, though he hadn't understood the details.  Lynah said that the Executive Committee had failed in its responsibility to inform the SCC of the situation.

     Mike said that often in the past Greens spent thousands of dollars and were reimbursed later by the Connecticut Green Party.  Chris agreed with this statement.

     Question 3 above asks " why half of the rent for the Hartford office wasn't paid by the Hartford chapter, even if the SCC half was paid through a loan from Chris."  Chris said again that the Hartford chapter's share of the rent was paid for (in some sense) by an accounting entry in the "setasides" account (Hartford chapter balance).  The Hartford chapter balance is now large and negative.  Chris further noted that per an SCC decision, 30% of donations made to the CTGP are sent back to the chapter of the donor--the failure during 2003 to do a fundraising mailing which included Hartford chapter members had left the Hartford chapter low on funds.

     Chris said he hoped that a successful annual mailing could be done soon.  He said, however, that he was concerned about the condition of the mailing list.

     The facilitator asked if the secretary could put into the minutes that Chris had addressed all the questions in the Women's Caucus proposal to the best of his ability.  There were no objections to this request.  Elizabeth said that the intention of the Executive Committee was that Chris should not have to spend his time at future SCC meetings addressing this issue;  the hope was that all questions chapter members had could be addressed tonight.  Chris had also explained the unreimbursed expenses at the August 2004 SCC meeting.

     The meeting turned to the proposal from the Executive Committee on partial repayment of Chris (Appendix 2).   Mike, Ed DuBrule, and Elizabeth explained that this proposal divided Chris' unreimbursed expenses into two categories:  expenses related to the rent payments for the Hartford office, and other expenses (envelopes, postage, printing, and website domain name registration).  The Executive Committee feels that consensus may be reachable tonight on repaying Chris the "other expenses";  more discussion among SCC members and chapter members may be needed before consensus is reached on reimbursing Chris for the rent-related expenses.  This proposal totals the "other expenses" ($890.82--see proposal) and proposes paying back Chris this amount at the rate of $74.24 per month for twelve months.

SCC DECISION:  By consensus the SCC passed this proposal.

 

B. OLD BUSINESS AND PROPOSALS
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