Board Meeting Minutes: October 2, 2022

Attendees: Tenia Dewolf, Greg Fisher, Adam Goforth, Raphael Guillen, Matt Hoostal, Alex McCauslin, Melanie Odom-Groh, Anna Wysocki, Sarah Khan

Meeting start: 12:53pm

Opening: Kindness Agenda - Melanie Odom-Groh

Introductions

The board members all introduced themselves, since this was the first meeting of the new board.

Team Reports

A Servant's Heart: the first set of documents needed for creating the non-profit has largely been written and the last couple are in progress. They are currently defining which responsibilities that are currently part of Journey of Faith's work will move to A Servant's Heart.

Daniel "Robby" Dugan: the church has had repeated problems with a person this year who participated in the homeless ministry. He is now under investigation and Greg has been subpoenaed to testify about his interactions with the church. 

Onboarding process for student interns: Jo Ella is getting some needed employment documents from the interns and will store that in the secure online file storage.

Basement flooding: there was significant basement flooding recently. We had a drain snaked out that might have prevented proper drainage, but it also seems like there was some trash on the exterior concrete stairway on the West side of the building that got washed down the stairs and covered the drain.

Neighboring condo construction: the construction company has not yet given us the documents we requested, which were missing from their easement proposal. Greg is searching for a lawyer to advise us on a monthly amount to demand for use of our airspace. The construction company knows that we're waiting for the documentation from them and they are not currently pressuring us to do anything.

Workers comp audit: Alex provided some additional paperwork to our workers comp insurer last week as part of a "premium audit". The insurance company is investigating whether we are paying enough for our insurance.

IRS 1099 Notice: the IRS contacted us to correct some deficiencies in the 1099s we submitted for our student interns. We should add more information (e.g. SSNs) to our documentation, but should not resubmit documents to the IRS. We have now gotten W-9s from all current interns, but there are 3 people who no longer work for us and for whom we don't have all the information. Moving forward, the payroll company and Jitasa will submit the 1099s for us, and we'll just have to give them the information they need.

Peace House property tax bill: we received a notice from the county that Peace House is 2 years behind on its property taxes. The county did not send the tax notices to the church as they should have. They were supposedly sent to Peace House itself, but were not received by Peace House staff. Peace House is changing their mail handling practices, since they suspect the notices might have been delivered, but went missing. We are submitting paperwork to the county to retroactively exempt the house from property taxes. In the worst case, we'll set up a payment plan with the county to pay it over time.

Church administrator: Susana submitted her two weeks notice last Friday, so she will be leaving her position at the church. The church will create a job description for her replacement, who ideally will be hired before December when Alex goes on parental leave. The position will certainly not be filled by the time Susana leaves, so the church will have to figure out how to take care of Susana's responsibilities during the gap between administrators. We will most likely distribute her work between other people on staff and in the church.

Financial report: if we don't do anything, our bank accounts will be at approximately $0 (or possibly in the red) at the end of October. Matt proposes that we transfer the remaining balance in the Van Waggoner Fund (approximately $17,000) to our bank account, to cover expenses. There was some discussion of the details of the Treasurer's Report, but the church financial future will be discussed in detail at a later time. The topic of moving our bank accounts to a new bank or credit union was raised, and Melanie suggested it would be part of the later financial discussion.

Melanie proposed that the board approve the transfer of the entirety of the Van Waggoner Fund into the church's bank account and close the fund. The board adopted the proposal by consensus, with no opposition voiced.

New Beginnings homelessness ministry: one of the washing machines stopped working. It would cost $500 to repair, with no guarantee that it won't break down again immediately. We would like to find a donor to replace it.

There was a mold issue after some recent flooding in the church basement, but that has mostly been taken care of in recent weeks.

Peace House: Sheri sent a long email about the current state of things. The church currently holds about $3,000 of surplus funds that Peace House has raised and not yet used. There have recently been renewed discussions between Sheri and church leadership about breaking out Peace House into its own LLC, and eventually a 501(c)(3). Sheri is feeling a sense of urgency to make these changes soon, and says she will get a team together to make it happen.

Transfer of digital account ownership: Adam and Matt met with Jo Ella and marked each online account as owned by one of them. Still to do: remove Jo Ella's contact and financial information from all accounts.

Website and social media: Adam will reach out to Susana for social media logins, so that the church will have them once she leaves. Adam will also work on some website updates in the next couple of weeks.

Pastor's Report

Alex has made the decision to permanently leave her position at the church at the beginning of December. Melanie has been talking to the regional minister, who recommends that we set up two committees: one to celebrate Alex's ministry and a second to search for an interim minister to work at the church while we search for a permanent pastor. The Disciples regional leadership will assist us in this transition.

Debrief and closing prayer

Meeting end: 3:34pm