April 2016 Finance Committee action items and recommendations

Post date: Apr 10, 2016 6:42:17 PM

The AVP/USA Finance Committee met on Thursday April 7th, 2016. We offer the following action items and recommendations for consideration:

1. Board Budget We need a budget from the Board for the “CofC” for the upcoming FY, in particular accounting for committee expenses, personnel costs (Transformer, National Outreach Coordinators), and scholarships for Board members for the 2017 Gathering.

Recommendation The Finance Committee recommends that the Board review a report from the staff about their activities, and how the activities meet the prescribed goals of the Board, before making recommendations about how to proceed with budget plans for staffing.

2. AVPI Scholarship Support: The 2017 AVP International Gathering will soon be announced for November, 2017 in Nepal. Early-bird registration will run October 2016 - January 2017, at a cost of $ 495 early bird, $ 545 regular. Airfare and one night "jetlag recovery" is about $1,500.

1) The board should determine how many AVP USA representatives to attend: @ $2,000 for full coverage

2) In past years, AVP/USA has been matching the budget for AVPUSA representatives with an equal donation to the AVP International Scholarship fund budget.

In 2014 AVP/USA budgeted $5k for AVP USA travel assistance to the gathering, and $10k for AVPI scholarships, dedicated to AVPI members from other parts of the world. There were 43 countries represented at the last gathering. AVPI’s fundraising goal is $150 to 180k.

There was some fundraising for the 2014 gathering, but the result was nowhere near the $15k total at the time.

Recommendation: The Finance Committee proposes to the Board that we commit $15,000 to the process ($10k to AVPI for scholarship use by international attendees, $5k to support AVP/USA travel) split over two fiscal years.

The committee recommends that the Board authorize Finance to set up a liability account, where we would expense $7500 against that line item in the 2016/17 FY, placing that amount in a liability account. Then in the next FY, we would disperse the funds by lowering the amount in the liability account, in addition to the $7,500.00 budgeted for the 2017/18 FY.

3. Request from the Distribution Center for a new computer Terry’s computer is quite old, and could use a replacement. Rick came up with an option from Tech Soup that was a laptop for a reasonable amount of money.

Recommendation: The committee approves the expenditure.