[Seattle-editorial] Re: [IMC-Seattle] IMC Finances ready for more in(tro)spection

[Rick Harrison]

Folks,

While I agree that we need financial accountabilty, I
am not sure how to achieve it.

Yes - a bunch of money went through our bank accounts.
 Some of that money was never really Seattle IMC's
money - we just held it for another group until they
could get organized.

The biggest problem, of course, is the sloppy
bookeeping.  Having been the one who actually
re-created the check register from the bank
statements, I was able to draw some conclusions.

In my humble opinion, we were misserved by sloppy,
inconsistant bookeeping.  Long time members agreed -
money management was a job no one wanted.  When I
became involved w/ IMC, I felt the same way.

No one's fault, just the reality - media work is fun,
financial stuff is not.

Balancing a checkbook is NOT media work - but
essential if we want to succesfully be a media
organization.

Where do we go from here?  First, I think the decision
to ask for missing bank records or not should be made
by the larger group after we re-convene.

The first 9 months of 2000 - we have no check register
or cancelled checks.  So the first 9 months of 2000,
the only thing we have is a bank statement, showing
check #.  Therefore, we have no idea who got what
those 9 months.

After that, we were able to locate, sort and file the
cancelled checks.

2000 - 4 years ago.  There are a total of 126 check we
still don't know what they were for.  The bank charges
4 bucks a piece for copies of cancelled checks, so
that would be $504. just to find this out.

Is that a wise use of what little we have left?  I
personally think not.  The people involved are all
long gone, we won't gain anything materially by having
this, and we cannot afford it.

Same with a formal audit - lovely idea, but who will
pay for it?

Folks - some quick bottom line numbers.  We have 2
grand left after paying expenses to move out of LIHI,
rent for storage, etc.

We owe 7 grand left to LIHI, which is less than we did
owe, more than we should.

We have some decisions needing fairly quick
determination, such as the CTC stuff.  (We have a firm
deadline from the city of July 30, btw)

I do believe we must deal with the past.  But we
should focus on - what lessons did we learn?  What can
we do differently to avoid the problems we now have? 

How can we learn from the past, without letting the
past continue to divide us?  

Folks, the whole money issue is one that I believe we
all must decide together.  As an empowered member of
the interum finance committee, I have proceeded by
doing only that which was absolutely necessary.

These bigger decisions are things we all must decide
upon.  After we start meeting again.

Rick

=====
ASK THE EXPERTS - "Fascism should more properly
be called corporatism, since it is the merger of 
state and corporate power"
Benito Mussolini


	
		
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