I am using this week’s President’s Message to pass along information concerning the club’s finances. Fortunately, it’s all good news!
At last week’s meeting, I mentioned the quiet, but important work that the Financial Analysis Committee recently completed. As you may recall, this committee was established through an amendment to our club by-laws for the purpose of conducting an annual analysis of the club’s financial statements each year. The inaugural committee – comprised of Nicole Steirer, David Dunn and Melissa Schwartz – worked with Club Treasurer Chris Wills to review the statements for the 2016-2017 Rotary year, as well as cash handling procedures and tax compliance matters. The committee completed its work earlier this spring and reported its findings and recommendations to the club’s board of directors at the April and May meetings.
I am happy to report that the committee reported no issues or concerns with the reported results of operations or cash balances for the 2016-2017 year. To sum up the committee’s findings, the club’s finances are healthy and cash balances are sufficient to fund our projects and operations. Click here to read the 2016-2017 financial statements.
As noted above, since this was the first year of the committee’s work, they also reviewed our cash handling procedures – particularly at the sign-in table for Thursday morning meetings – as well as requests from members for expense reimbursements. Club Treasurer Chris Wills is preparing forms that we will begin employing for each process. These will be shared with members - along with explanatory instructions - in a future edition of the Trumpet.
Since this process was new, the committee developed their own approach for the review and completed their work by the early spring. In future years, I anticipate the committee will complete its work by the end of September so that the previous year’s financials can be provided to members on a more timely basis.
For the sake of consistency, the board established procedures whereby one of the committee members will rotate off each year and be replaced by a member to be nominated by the then current Club President for a new three-year term. President-Elect Rick Zayaitz will be responsible for nominating a replacement for Melissa Schwartz who will rotate off after serving a one-year term. Nicole will remain on the committee for two more years and David will serve for one more year. Please join me in thanking Nicole, David and Melissa for a job well done!
Yours in Rotary,
Burt