18) Budget

[Christopher Mallon]

This is what I'd like to see every year: http://www.chessontario.com/meetings...als%202009.pdf

I prepared this one as we had no Treasurer at the time. All 4 pages of information, all in one place, would be great to have.

[Rob Clark]

Hi Rob, first of all, if I may suggest, please do not be offended. I cannot speak for Marcus, but I suspect he feels in a similar place to where I am, so I will speak about how I feel, and maybe others can echo that, or not. There is no witch hunt here!

In my humble opinion, for the last few years, as EOCA President, and therefore dealing more closely with the OCA, I have personally found it very frustrating to fully completely understand OCA financials. Maybe they are posted somewhere that I am not aware of. Maybe they are posted in an "accounting" style that I am not as familiar with. Maybe there seems to be relatively little responsiveness to questions from key people, like league Presidents and Treasurers. Maybe we expect more from the OCA quite simply because of the shocking 6-figure debacle that many people feel was never resolved.

Whatever. Some or all of these, and/or other things, are adding up to a situation where we all need a very thorough Treasurer presentation. I know all too well how difficult it is to find volunteers, so I deeply appreciate our continuing Treasurer. However, again in my humble opinion, you should not need to be the one replying back at Marcus. We all need Brett to set a foundation of communication that will make us all comfortable again.

I do not see how the OCA can really significantly proceed as an organization until after we have cleared all our financial shadows, to the point that everyone is convinced that we are at an appropriate level of transparency. You might be right that we are actually already there, but there seem to be many people who are not convinced, but must be.

I hope that you did not find this post offensive to either yourself or Brett. I am just trying to tell it like it is. I believe that we are all looking for the same success here!

Hi Aris,

I am not offended at all. I understand your sentiments, keep in mind I was a league president too. Regarding your maybes, I think they all add up to the unfortunate mess of the OCA's reputation.

In terms of the accounting style, try this one:

http://www.chessontario.com/meetings...urerincome.pdf

Once more, I have to thank Brett. He is competent and honest and I have no doubt he is busy so I've been trying to pick up the slack. You might as well get a tshirt with a target on the back when you agree to be OCA treasurer (and he's doing all of this as a volunteer).

In terms of our finances right now, that document above might be more to your liking, if you want further clarification I can go into more detail. Egis's suggestion is a great one too. At this point, I'm not asking for trust (I know its not there and there is no reason for it to be yet) but I would like next years budget to be approved since I personally think its very reasonable. I really don't want another meeting and it gets very tricky after that, we have to immediately give 15 days notice and assume that we can get the same level of participation as we did here etc etc. My goal for the next term (among many, I have some big ideas) is to get our taxes filed. I want that extra level of accountability and really don't want any internal problems with our finances before then.

[Rob Clark]

ONTARIO CHESS ASSOCIATION
INCOME STATEMENT FOR THE YEAR ENDING 30 APRIL 2012
Opening bank balance 1 May 2011 $ 3,485.08
Interest Income $ .18
CFC Rebates - February to April 2011 $1,152.00
CFC Rebates May to November 2011 $2,436.50
Total Income $ 3,588.68
Expenses
Canadian Closed Chess Championship (Hal Bond) $ 500.00
Nick Stepanian (accounting) $ 500.00
EOCA (2011) $ 480.00
Patrick McDonald (OYCC 2011) $ 500.00
Bob Gillanders (Ontario Open 2011) $ 500.00
NOCL (2011) $ 120.00
SWOCL (2011) $ 745.00
Patrick McDonald (OYCC 2012) $ 500.00
GTCL (2011) $ 1,065.00
Total expenses = $4,910.00
Excess of expenses over income = $ 1,321.32
Closing bank balance 30 April 2012 $2,163.76
Adjustments to Income
Account Receivable
CFC Rebate November 2011 to April 2012 $2,261.50

Adjustments to expenses
Accounts Payable
Ontario Open 2012(NOCL) $ 500.00
Ontario High School Chess Championship (2012) $ 250.00
Top Senior 2012 Canadian Open $ 150.00
Top Ontario Woman 2012 Canadian Women’s Championship $ 150.00
Payments to NOCL, SWOCL, EOCA, GTCL (2012) $2,349.00
Subtotal $3,399.00
Excess of Accounts Payable over Account Receivable $1,137.50
Amount of money available until next CFC rebate in November $1,026.26

[Aris Marghetis]

After some more thought about this situation, I have come to a realization that I find disappointing, although I can see how we got here. This is only my personal conjecture, so people might completely disagree with the following seemingly judgmental statement :

I suspect that if the budget is not approved at this AGM, that it will be a result not so much of people voting against the actual budget, but rather expressing discomfort with the AGM presence and presentation, or lack thereof, of the budget by the Treasurer.

If that is what is really happening, that's a shame. However, it is also a call to doing things a certain way, an appropriate "transparent" way that puts everyone at ease.

Hopefully this coming year, and years after, we can find a way to balance between achieving completely supported budgets, and the thankless volunteer work behind them.

[Michael Barron]

Expenses
...
Nick Stepanian (accounting) $ 500.00
...

Thank you, Mr. Clark!

Could you please clarify:
Who is Nick Stepanian and what exactly he has done for the OCA?

[Rob Clark]

Thank you, Mr. Clark!

Could you please clarify:
Who is Nick Stepanian and what exactly he has done for the OCA?

Nick Stepanian helped Hal prepare our taxes.

[Marcus Wilker]

Marcus, tell me how this isn't formal or transparent? I asked for input while preparing the budget, response was very limited. Everything that shows up in the proposed budget came out of the discussion post regarding the budget. I reduced funding to the OCA team championship because feelings looked mixed about it so I figured $500 support was too much. In terms of transparency, there is a complete breakdown of where funding went for last year and a proposal for funding for next year. What more are you looking for Marcus?

How can I be one ounce more transparent? I take this one very seriously since it was one of my goals to make the OCA finances more transparent. I've answered questions, posted last years budget opened the discussion multiple times for input on next years budget.

Please, tell me one thing I can do to make finances more transparent. If there is something I can do, I will endeavor to do it.

Rob,

Somehow, Aris intuited my position well and I agree with almost everything he wrote. I'll just add a couple small personal notes.

First, let me be clear: It's not something I need you to do personally. Like Aris said, it's not a witch hunt. It's something I want us all to do.

I'm not surprised, either, that I don't understand where to look to see the account balance carried through last year's revenues and expenses, and into this year, with this year's proposed budget side by side with amounts spent on these items last year, so I can tell which items are getting more funding, which items are new, etc. That's not surprising because I'm new. I don't know anything unless someone tells me. No, what I'm surprised by is that Aris is confused, and Chris doesn't have enough information to approve the budget.

Still, I was on the fence. Just approve it, and wait to get everything clarified, or stubbornly insist that I want us to do a better job of this?

I sat on it for a few days. In the end, I threw my vote in with those who are raising a call

a call to doing things a certain way, an appropriate "transparent" way that puts everyone at ease.

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

From Adjustments to expenses
Accounts Payable
"Top Senior 2012 Canadian Open $ 150.00
Top Ontario Woman 2012 Canadian Women’s Championship $ 150.00 "

Why does the OCA fund the Canadian Open which is held in the BC?
Were they already paid?
I don't remember that such expenses where approved by anyone openly.
Should they be on the 2012/13 budget as 2012 events?

[Rob Clark]

A couple things. Firstly, the amounts paid to the top senior and woman were approved at last year's AGM. Also, we will not be supporting the tournament (directly) but the Ontario players. There is nothing I can do about this and I had no input on this. The same thing goes for Nick Mr. Barron, I believe that was promised in 2010. Both of these were before I even got close to the reigns, why is this coming up now?

[Rob Clark]

Rob,

Somehow, Aris intuited my position well and I agree with almost everything he wrote. I'll just add a couple small personal notes.

First, let me be clear: It's not something I need you to do personally. Like Aris said, it's not a witch hunt. It's something I want us all to do.

I'm not surprised, either, that I don't understand where to look to see the account balance carried through last year's revenues and expenses, and into this year, with this year's proposed budget side by side with amounts spent on these items last year, so I can tell which items are getting more funding, which items are new, etc. That's not surprising because I'm new. I don't know anything unless someone tells me. No, what I'm surprised by is that Aris is confused, and Chris doesn't have enough information to approve the budget.

Still, I was on the fence. Just approve it, and wait to get everything clarified, or stubbornly insist that I want us to do a better job of this?

I sat on it for a few days. In the end, I threw my vote in with those who are raising a call

If you had a problem with budgeting in the past this was not the time to raise it. There was a treasurer's report at the outgoing AGM which contained all the information you needed (yes the information you requested Marcus). If you have a problem with previous years budgeting raise it in a manner where it can be constructively answered (and the appropriate time, which would have been the outgoing meeting), don't vote down a budget out of spite.

If you had a problem with budgeting in the past, address it at the outgoing AGM where it is proper and there is enough time that it can be addressed.

If you had a problem with anything in the proposed 2012-2013 budget, you should have contributed to the discussion where I repeatedly asked for input.

To leave an organization without an approved budget is not even close to the way to increase an organization's past financial accountability. I took the time to answer questions, I called people to explain things, I sought input. I will gladly do these things in order to increase financial transparency, but please do not tie my hands and leave me without a proper budget for reasons unrelated to the budget on the table. You are governors, some initiative is required, especially if the initiative is simply reading the treasurer's report and clicking on a couple links. If you have any questions I will still gladly discuss it over the phone or by email etc. But to have people asking questions from two years ago and then voting down the incoming budget, shows they neither read the treasurer's report (and more importantly the links provided by Egis) at the outgoing AGM, nor took the time to ask questions when it was possible to answer them in a manner which would have addressed their concerns.

Finally lets be honest, now we will have to have another meeting in a couple weeks. The meeting will likely have even less participation and this will leave only more questions. This did not improve anything, only completely paralyzed the organization and stopped us from going forward.

I am still hopeful though, no one wants to get past these issues more than me. When the next meeting occurs, I encourage you all to be active. If you have questions, don't sit on them. You all have my email, if you feel strongly about something email me and I will give you my phone number and we can discuss the matter. I cannot say I am pleased about the budget defeat, but out of it comes an opportunity to move forward as an organization.

Let's do so.