Update For Finance – May 2024
OIAA Finance Committee
Record of Minutes
Saturday, May 11th, 2024
8:00am – am HDT
11:00am – pm PDT
2:00pm -pm EDT
Attendees :
Jennifer B – OIAA Treasurer
Felix E. – Alternate Treasurer
Jeff B. – OIAA Secretary
Barry M. – Longtime Member Finance Committee
Susan R. – OIAA Chair
JoAnn B – IGR for Serenity Group in Tampa
Nicky W. – Finance Committee Secretary
Jennifer leads Serenity Prayer. All in Attendance join in.
Jennifer introduces herself as the Treasurer. Felix introduces himself as the Alternate Treasurer. Jeff B. is honored to be the OIAA Secretary. Barry is German and a longtime member of the Finance Committee, Susan introduces herself as the OIAA Chair. JoAnn B introduces herself as the IGR for Serenity Group in Tampa. Nicky is the Secretary for the Finance Committee. .
Jennifer begins with the Agenda and they are accepted. Jennifer says that the Minutes are still being processed as indicated by Nicky during the introductions. The Minutes will be pushed to the next meeting for review. Jennifer asks if anyone would like to add anything to the Agenda.
Review of the Finance Reports
Jennifer begins with the Budget and brings it up on screen. She tells the group that regarding Contributions, April has been the highest month ever so far. The total for contributions is $9,700. As for expenses, the insurance expenses are directors and officers insurance. In mailings, there were a couple hundred dollar contributions in cash. One was sent directly to Jennifer’s house and she deposited it via Paypal and indicated that there was another that could not be deposited, so Felix had that certain one sent to his house in which he deposited it. Paypal and Stripe fees are part of the Revenues. Professional fees are our accounting software. Tech special worker expense was $675.00. Interpretation for the IGR Forum and Unity is significantly under budget due to using the up work program. Video and Conferences refers to the 2 Zoom Accounts they now have and also well under the annual budget. Website hosting and Management is largely the Google related expenses plus very small additional apps needed for Zoom. Jennifer says that the finances are doing very well. She asks for any questions about the Budget Variance. None
NO QUESTIONS OR FEEDBACK
Jennifer continues that she is hoping to encourage Mark to go ahead and fund any special projects he has. She moves on to the Balance Sheet.
Review of the Balance Sheet
She reads that there is $122,000 cash in the bank of which $5,500 is earmarked for the 2025 AA International Convention. There will be a hospitality suite available which leaves OIAA just under $117,000. There will be more expenses later on in the year, but they are financially robust at this moment. Jennifer would like to encourage any members of the Finance Committee to think about other places to donate and distribute the excess funds at the end of the year. She has two ideas for funds. The first place she would donate the excess funds is with GSO in New York and the International Literature Fund. She states that in the past they have donated funds to TIAA. She has reached out to them but has not received a response yet. She asks Barry, who has a connection with them, to reach out and to encourage them to send information so they could make an informed decision on where to send funds. Barry would like to recommend NAATW, but Jennifer responds that she has looked into them and they are a private foundation. She says they are event related and during their events, they charge fees. So the events should be able to support them. It is her opinion that they are a private foundation and are completely different from a public charity. Barry says that there’s been a long running conversation about whether or not OIAA is legitimately permitted to donate money to GSO because they only accept contributions from alcoholics individually. Jennifer asks Jeff, the OIAA Secretary, for any information. Jeff responds saying that the statement isn’t true. He continues that any area, district, an event, or any Intergroup can contribute to GSO. It is not just limited to individuals. Barry replies that they are not part of the service structure, so OIAA is not connected to GSO formally. He also states that most intergroups struggle with having enough money, yet they will contribute to the GSO. Bear asks the group if they are in fact part of the Intergroup as far as GSO is concerned. Jennifer answers that yes, they are since they have the OIAA on their website. Jeff adds that since OIAA also participates in the ICOAA, they are recognized by GSO. Also, he and Susan are going to go to a conference in August where GSO participates with all the other Intergroupss. Jeff states that they are absolutely a legitimate Intergroup.
Jennifer talks to Jeff about the flight and hotel information for that upcoming conference. She asks Jeff if he needs help with travel planning as she has been doing Susan’s. Jeff replies that he could use some help with his flight. He has already bought his hotel room, but could use flight help.
As the airfares from Newark seem very expensive in his search.
Jeff has two other questions he would like to discuss. One, if we are still accruing funds for the 2025 international convention. Jennifer answers that they are no longer accruing funds and she thinks that the $5,500.00 is a great cushion to have for the expenses for the International Convention. Jennifer agrees that they budgeted a bit more than they had before in 2023. Jeff adds that the entities they had donated to were GSO and a contribution to Grapevine. Jeff would like to urge them to do it again. He believes they are in dire need of those funds. Jennifer says that they had previously purchased subscriptions which they hold and distribute to prisoners and to those who cannot afford them. She asks that Jeff reach out to them through his connections and see how many subscriptions they can purchase. Jennifer asks for any other feedback or questions. None.
NO QUESTIONS OR FEEDBACK
Review of the Contributions Sheet
Jennifer goes to the Contributions. She says that as the OIAA has grown, the amount per group is growing as are the contributions. There were some large contributions. There were 62 groups that contributed in April. Jennifer asks if there are any questions? Jeff questions the individuals on the contributions report. Since it is now summarized in a single line, he was surprised to see it was that high. He would like to know if this is similar to previous months. Jennifer answers that it is UP. She states that there was one individual who contributed $100.00. She followed up with the donator to make sure that wasn’t a mistake and they replied that it was valid. So, occasionally this happens. She explains that sometimes individuals will contribute once a month while others will do a chunk annually. Susan would like to know how many groups or percentages contribute from overseas. Jennifer answers that though Paypal shows this information, Stripe does not and they do not give the information to you. We don’t even have a report for now. She says that outside countries will be more difficult to obtain data on.
Jennifer asks if there is any new business to be brought up for discussion. She reminds Jeff that she sent him a registration for New Jersey a week ago and needs him to sign and get back to her. She says it is the last thing she needs for the registrar even though it isn’t due until June 30th.
Questions and Comments from Finance Committee Meeting
Jeff has another question about the Budget. He always puts together a spreadsheet when he goes on trips and it seems that he goes over the allotted $1,500.00 for this calculation for his upcoming trip. He has two insurance policies that are going to be under budget. He wants to know if she looks at the aggregate of that budget as opposed to the individual items. Jennifer answers that she doesn’t. Jeff continues that if he’s going to overspend on an item what should he do? Jennifer answers that he should bring it up with the Board since she believes that she has budgeted within that scope. The Board however can approve anything under $500 and this would probably lie within that scope. She reassures him that she can do a little magic with her looking for his flights and that she also does a per diem rate. She says that it’s not about what they spend, but about the per diem rate that they 2receive. Jeff asks if she can explain a little further. Jennifer answers that for food, entertainment and transportation every city has a different per diem. This is the amount they receive regardless of what they spend. Jeff wants to make sure he understands what this includes. He says out loud that this per diem covers food, any transportation to go to and from the event, and that it would also include getting from the airport to the hotel and home. Jennifer answers that it does include those transportations. Jennifer explains that the per diem gives the organization a fixed mount as to how much the individual is going to receive. Jeff would like to discuss further when he has more information about his budget.
Susan has a question about the upcoming budget. Jennifer says that there will be a new formula on how to deal with the interpreters. A budget should remain static and adjustable. The interpretation services were over budgeted. She says that they could also vote on the budget to either increase or decrease. Going forward after meeting with the Board, there will be a more confirmed budget formula for 2025. Susan agrees and appreciates the update on the Budget. Jennifer asks if there are any other questions or concerns? Susan would also like to bring up that in June they will deliver the Internal Financial Review and asks if Erica will be there as she has not been reliable in the past. Jennifer answers that she thought Erica to be more than reliable. Susan disagrees and says that she did not show up. Jennifer answers that Leslie could do it, but she saw more activity from Erica during the process. Susan replies that she has not presented it, yet Jennifer states that she thought it had already been presented, but Susan cannot recall any presentation and says she missed the Board Meeting. Jeff supports Susan’s observation and suggests reviewing past meeting records. Jennifer agrees to have a Plan B in place in case Erica does not show up, and suggests Susan to contact the committee to set up the presentation. She cannot present it or she would.
Bear wants to comment on one more thing on budgeting. He wants to say that they missed the mark on what translation expenses be, but that they’ve been pretty conservative on the Budget and Revenue. He thinks that we should take a look at what Jennifer is thinking about using it for. Jennifer goes back to the Budget to look at the “trend”. She continues that the trend is up and they did budget a little bit more then they did. The budget is a little more than what he did in 2023.
Jennifer states that they are YTD $4,000 above what they had budgeted. Jennifer thinks the budget is actually pretty good. Bear agrees and says there’s 4 months. That’s 4 months and a thousand dollars a month difference. Bear continues that they’re looking for where it’s going to be at the end of this year which will create a surplus between reserves and needs to have it pretty well understood. Jennifer says that at some point we will hit maturity. The way they used to budget was they would just plug in the revenues to the amount of the expenses, which Jennifer found problematic. She says they have new methods in place for distributing excess funds. She believes in distributing excess funds to applicable other organizations because then, it is impossible to budget.
She reiterates that, using the last month for example, compared to the previous month, we are at 29.75 greater than our budget. So, this month has $2,200.00 to this $4000 rise in revenue. Our biggest area is our tech worker and translation. We budgeted $2,500.00 a month. The new tech worker isn’t costing as much as the old one. So. When you create a budget, all you can go off of is the possibilities. Another budget item is our organizational fees. We have $500/month for possible legal expenses. We’re probably not going to use that, but there’s a possibility we might.
One thing Jennifer would really like to see is for Mark to spend some money on tech improvements sooner rather than later because next month we’re going to get another $2,500.00. He has a total of $10,000.00 budgeted. Jennifer asks if there is anything else she can help with. Jeff asks for what Jennifer needed to get the flight info he needs. They discuss the stipulations of the per diem rates with travel. Jeff asks Felix if he has a moment to talk after the meeting. Felix agrees.
Jennifer asks if there are any questions or feedback.
No Questions or Feedback
Jennifer closes with the Responsibility Statement
