Scott Moore wrote: <snip> What's all this I hear about a "missing" $80,000? Where did the money go? Seeing a dollar amount in red ink with a minus sign in front of it might be alarming. It has been stated in this forum a couple of times that the "Changes in Fund Balance" amount of -$82,023 did not come from NRP. Here's a quote from a letter by Michael Wilson, the CPA who audited the financial statements of LNA: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg41124.html
The LNA was engaged in activities that a major funding source, the Minneapolis NRP, chose not to fund. While these activities appeared to be consistent with the LNAs overall mission, they were not consistent with the NRP's contracts. Here's a quote from the letter posted by the list manager addressed to Wendy Pareene. It is a response to her letter of February 10, 2003: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg41093.html As has been explained to you on several occasions, due to disagreements that arose in 2000 about the way that staff time should be accounted for and reimbursed, NRP declined to reimburse LNA for a sum of approximately $83,000. Some LNA staff worked some hours, put in some time and got paid but when LNA went to NRP, one of their funding sources, to cover this expense NRP said no? That's what appears to have happened. Staff time may be accounted for in a budget under operations or supportive services. Since the money LNA was hoping to get from NRP did not come it had to come from other sources. Mark Anderson replies: I've been an accountant in the private sector for twenty-five years, and I was Treasurer at the Bancroft Neighborhood Association for three years. I have a pretty good feel for what the books should look like on the detail level. I gotta believe that Wendy Wilde received more information as a member of the executive committee than has been provided on the Mpls Issues List. But if the information provided here is representative of the usual reaction to her request to know what's going on, then she has a right to be angry. Maybe the financial management of LNA is out of control. The letter from the outside auditor was worthless. I hope he provided a more detailed accounting of what happened to the Board, or he should be fired. It's been stated several times that LNA spent this money and then NRP decided not to cover these expenses. That's all well and good, but it's not an explanation. The question is why didn't NRP reimburse LNA for the expenses? NRP does cover the normal administrative costs of running a neighborhood office. What was so extravagant about these costs that NRP wouldn't pay them? Maybe there are perfectly reasonable explanations for it, but it certainly does bear explaining what happened. $82,000 is a lot of money. I sometimes felt a bit irresponsible for agreeing to $25 expenditures that NRP wouldn't cover. $82,000 should be explained in great detail to anyone who asks. When I was Treasurer of BNA, I always felt that every penny spent was public information. I explained the financial events to the Board in our monthly meetings in as much detail as they asked for. I wasn't always clear about some of the complicated goings on, but I was willing to take as long as it took to make them understand the financial status of the neighborhood. And I would do the same for anyone who lived in the neighborhood. I don't live in Lyndale Neighborhood, so I don't feel owed an explanation on what happened, but I do feel some sympathy for Wendy. I agree that one needs to take the volunteer labor into account when judging how a neighborhood is run. At BNA, we certainly made plenty of mistakes, and we never had time to run the association as well as we'd have liked to. But that is no excuse for not having complete financial transparency. The whole reason Wendy brought this up was to torpedo Scott Persons' council hopes. I don't know if that is reasonable. Even if LNA was somewhat dysfunctional financially and Scott was the president some of the time, I don't think you can put all the blame on one person (pun intended). Scott Moore continued: So if NRP didn't give LNA this money, how did LNA cover this staff time? $457,351 fiscal 02 revenue -$428,357 fiscal 02 expenses ---------------------------- $ 28,994 fiscal 02 excess $209,954 fund balance at beginning of year 02 -$156,925 fund balance at the end of year 02 ---------------------------- $ 53,029 difference +$ 28,994 fiscal 02 excess ---------------------------- $ 82,023 Mark Anderson replies: What kind of explanation is this? It explains nothing. All it says is LNA had extra money in 02 so it could pay off the deficit from an earlier year. The question is where did the funding come from? I can't imagine a funding source like McKnight or Otto Bremer agreeing to pay off the $82,000 just to cover LNA's deficit. What funding source paid off the $82,000, since NRP wouldn't do so? I'm not accusing LNA of any kind of malfeasance in covering this $82,000 loss; I'm really just curious. I wondered about this when I was at BNA. There are always holes here and there in any system, so the funding sources never cover 100% of the expenses. I would like to know where a neighborhood is supposed to get the extra cash to cover these holes. Mark V Anderson Bancroft REMINDERS: 1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If you think a member is in violation, contact the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[email protected] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
