[Osta-board] Board Communications

[Bernie Carlsen]

Hello Bradford,

    As the author of a number of emails to the board regarding the last
online board meeting, I have to respond to your tirade.    You, kind sir,
are not being accused of any wrongdoing.

   The board meeting could not go on long enough for the speaker at the end
to complete her explanations.  There was no time for any explanation of the
financial documents that were presented.  The items on the documents had
never been seen by board members and there was no explanation as to where
the OSTA money was going.    What would you say if you saw 6 unexplained
electronic withdrawals on your banks statements ???

  Regarding the document that you have included with your tirade, it is
from an audit required by the MSEF grant from when Heidi Keller was PI.
The Bend accountant who wrote this report submitted it as a Municipality
document, like those submitted by public water bureaus and public utility
districts who bill their customers and pay their employees.   OSTA was a
professional association, not a Municipality.  It does not use public tax
money for any of its dealings, and therefore is not subject to the rules
that municipalities must follow.

Again, I repeat, you are not being accused of any wrongdoing.  I'm sorry
that you could not see what I was asking when those strange ADP withdrawals
appeared on the Chase documents and nothing was ever said about what they
were.

Hopefully, Nicole (who is Teresa?) can explain what the finance statements
detail.  Sue has already cleared up most of that in her emails.  And again,
regarding your "Items #2 & #3", please tell the board  who (ADP?) they have
contracted when the board approves them with the majority vote.

Yes, more time is needed to address the financial issues.   The retreat is
needed to let all of the board members have a say in these issues.  Every
board member, not just the three people who run the online versions, needs
to be active in the operations of OSTA.

Peace and friendship and a successful Bend Fall Conference!     Bernie

btw:  Please talk about running an OSTA Board Member for the NSTA Regional
Representative position ! ! !







On Mon, Jun 8, 2015 at 7:10 PM, bradford hill <
Bradford_Hill at beaverton.k12.or.us> wrote:

>  Hello Board Members and others to whom this contact list addresses,
>
> As the elected leaders of the Oregon Science Teachers Association, we feel
> it is important to address the recent series of emails to the OSTA Board
> list serve.
>
> We consider it unprofessional, in this forum, to make statements that can
> only be interpreted as accusing members of the leadership team, and contracted
> professionals by the board of wrongdoing.
>
>  While past practices in accounting for this organization may have used
> stipended contract work, that is no longer the case.  Nicole Mathes, was
> approved by the board to be the bookkeeper during the March 2014 Board
> Retreat.  As a professional bookkeeper, she has worked with Carolyn Clontz
> (Interim Comptroller) and then Kristy Rawls, the elected Treasurer, to
> organize and update OSTA’s accounting practices with current professional
> accounting standards.  This was done in response to the 2012 Financial
> Review
> <https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzjOmrY3ZPEiYUYwVmlRbjl4Wnc/view?usp=sharing>
> of the organization’s accounting practices as having a “significant
> deficiency” in segregation of accounting duties, and a recommendation for
> OSTA to “consider its options for improving or outsourcing its expertise in
> financial reporting and weigh the related costs with the benefits that
> could be derived from correcting this matter.”
>
>  Lori was appointed Communications Coordinator by the board at the
> October 2014 board meeting. The board was informed at the February 2014
> board meeting that Lori would be placed on payroll as an employee, as
> recommended by our professional bookkeeper, Nicole Mathes, to keep us in
> compliance with IRS guidelines for non-profit organizations.  The line
> items in the Chase bank statements that are to ADP is for payroll as Susan
> McWilliams explained in her June 1st email after the first questions about
> them came up.
>
>  We feel we must ask that the Board support us in asking for:
>
>
>    1. That we have a line item accounting of each expenditure from OSTA
>    accounts.
>    2. That when there are doubts about expenditures, but no conclusive
>    evidence of misuse, we refrain from accusations of misuse of funds and
>    defamation of contracted personnel and board members who serve OSTA.
>    3. That we accurately state that contracted personnel are not at the
>    invitation of individuals within OSTA but serve only at the approval of a
>    majority vote of the Board.
>
>
>  Recent communications have notably breached items 2 and 3 to an extent
> that we feel, as Presidents, is not acceptable. With the retreat only weeks
> away we do ask Board Members to consider what actions need to taken to
> ensure this kind of communication ceases and apologies are given. There
> will be time allocated at the retreat to address this issue.
>
>  Respectfully,
>  Bradford Hill, OSTA President
>  Susan Holveck, OSTA President-Elect
>  Susan McWilliams, OSTA Past President
>
>
>
>
> Bradford Hill
> Science Teacher at Southridge High School
> Teacher on Special Assignment focusing on STEM
> President of the Oregon Science Teachers Association
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Osta-board mailing list
> Osta-board at maillist.peak.org
> http://maillist.peak.org/mailman/listinfo/osta-board
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://maillist.peak.org/pipermail/osta-board/attachments/20150609/e9fde56d/attachment.html>