Event:2022/02/03 Finance

Omni Commons fin/fun working group meeting, Thursday February 3rd 2022

• yar, john, sarah, silver

• gratitude & appreciation for john being president and treasurer for so long!
  • john: also for sarah for writing reports that help understand what's going on
• we have ~$90k of unrestricted funds: unify, paypal, beneficial, self-help. ~$14k in kitchen fund. avg monthly operating costs ~$11k. 8 months of cash if nobody pays anything. doing pretty good.
  • john: i learned fnb has $18k they're figuring out what to do with. some will come to omni
  • sarah: they sent us a $2k check a few weeks ago
  • also they're talking about paying $500/month
  • silver: the $2k was for utilities. they have $58k in the bank. surplus is $18. we came to consensus last night on paying $500/month and will continue discussion next month on giving more to omni
  • loose discussion on whether to allocate that for restricted kitchen fund. all in favor, noncommitally
• sarah submitted our slightly overdue registry of charitable trust report
• jenny got new debit card, updated passpack. alternative ways to pay things?
• still missing payments from anv. 6 months late!
  • silver: anv do too much. trying to figure out if i can just start approving those myself. gonna follow up again with my boss. things falling through the cracks, people authorized are too busy.
  • silver's boss says best person to bill is sarah@anvfarm.org
• sarah has fixed the paypal account number confusion, removed all bank accounts but one: general omni loan fund
• closing out noma fsa. will write up something quick saying "this agreement is terminated" and have someone sign it. and getting the final $1k or so.
  • john will try drafting and sending something
  • where to put that money? a check deposited at unify? who could authorize a transfer?
• reimbursing diy for roof. came in over bid price. mike did a lot of unexpected work. ~$1k more. ~$19k + something total. mike has been fully paid and settled up (by diy). only remaining balance is between omni and diy. we agreed omni would pay back periodically by november.
  • mike had misremembered an amount at one point and asked for $500 extra.
  • john: less than $10% overage on an $18k contract sounds good
  • the extra money is for materials - he's been doing immeasurable labor for free. working hundreds of hours, all hours of day and night.
  • john suggests a diy invoice for total amount. probably doesn't need delegate approval. when john gets it, he'll pay it.
  • sarah suggests paying diy with paypal. checks take 2 weeks with the mail, po box, etc.
• silver wants help applying for War Tax / Peoples Life Fund grant. sarah willing to help and let silver take the lead.
  • confirmed that silver has permission to work on this grant and work with others and then show work to this wg at next meeting.
• yar has been working with a new remote volunteer from BACE Timebank who is working on this grant opportunity database https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HzQ1hTH-IgzMUZRRIbvvsRAS83FjJo3b1csqcViijOM/edit#gid=0
• we ended up reabsorbing the fundraising wg because nobody else was working on it. we welcome new further participants in fundraising, especially if they're willing to help bottomline.
• we're not tied to this thursday 5pm timeslot
• silver doesn't want to be part of fin/fun group, will just join when they can. but after fnb meeting i realized i don't fully understand omni's finance, so it was hard to articulate/advocate for omni. that's what i hope to gain.
• jenny is still helping sarah from behind the scenes
• we still need a new treasurer! they don't strictly HAVE to do anything - others can pick up the slack if necessary. but the more the better.