Oregon National Guard Association

Board Meeting Minutes

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Present:

Brig Gen Michael Stencel Maj Gen (Ret) Dan O'Hollaren

LTC (Ret) Marc Snook Robin Webb

LTC Carter McReynolds CW5 Terry Swartwout

Lt Dominic Thornberg Maj Dawn Choy

COL Kelly Smothers Maj Andrea Smothers

CPT Thanh Vo BG Steven Beach

CPT Maribel Ortega LTC (Ret) Wyatt Welch

MAJ Charles Patzner CPT Shane Maher

COL (Ret) Roberta Janssen

1. Welcome by the President – Brig Gen Stencel welcomed members to the meeting.

2. Minute Approval: Meeting was called to order and the June minutes were reviewed and approved as written. A motion to accept the minutes as written was made and a second was given. Motion passed.

3. Financial Update:

a. Budget: $116,956.30 is the balance in the checkbook as of July 3rd.

b. Budget Report for June: COL (Ret) Janssen indicated the insurance dividend for $25,283.00 was received which is about $5,000 less than last year at this time. We also received a check from Boeing for $1,000 and Power Flare for $500. United Healthcare’s check of $5,000 also came in ($2,500 of that goes to the Education Fund and the other $2,500 goes to the Association). That brings us to $38,000 for Corporate Sponsorship this year. We did recoup some money for the Military Ball from people who said they paid who didn’t. A refund check of $2,138.00 came from NGAUS due to overpayment with the first batch submitted for Oregon membership on the new membership system. Brig Gen Stencel asked about projected income/expenses for the year and if the numbers were reliable. COL (Ret) Janssen indicated Membership would probably not meet the $2,000 projected until October thru December; have not received the Early Bird refund yet; and Corporate Partners are probably done for the year at least until December or so.

4. NGAUS Conference:

a. Transportation from Airport: COL (Ret) Janssen indicated if you look at the NGAUS website, transportation will go through Go Shuttle. You put your reservations into Go Shuttle, they send you a ticket then the shuttle will take you to your hotel. This is not being paid for by the Host State (Chicago) so her recommendation is that this be an additional expense the Association picks up for everyone. She also indicated there has been no mention of a Hospitality Suite so we will just visit other Hospitality rooms at this point. A motion to include the shuttle transportation costs to and from the airport for those attending was made and a second was given. Motion passed.

b. Pins for Exchange: LTC (Ret) Snook indicated they are on order and assume should be here by the end of the month.

c. Throw things for Opening Ceremony: COL (Ret) Janssen stated it was between the flashing Puffer Balls and the Fishing Bobber and Rain Ponchos. We have a $300 budget for these types of items. The Puffer Balls would be 226 of them. Maj Smothers will go back through the list to narrow it down somewhat and then report back. Maj Smothers has volunteered to write the opening remarks for our state. Brig Gen Stencel suggested because she is writing them, Maj Smothers should give them.

d. Update on NGAUS Conference: COL (Ret) Janssen stated there are 22 Delegates allocated for the State of Oregon. We have 21 people who are eligible to be Delegates, only need one more. Have two Board Members for the NGAUS Board, Maj Gen (Ret) O’Hollaren and CW5 Terry Swartwout. Tasks Forces not covered at this time are the Medical Task Force under “Joint”.

5. Membership 2014: CPT Vo states as of right now we are at 139 Air Guard Officers paid up or 61.7% and 457 or 74% on the Army side. Total for the state is 66.1%. He did create the “Official” Twitter page for the Association and still trying to figure out how that works. This will be one of the primary ways to push information out to Company Grade Officers. Contacted the person who manages our Facebook page right now but has not heard anything back from him. Also contacted the Website Manager for our website and will meet with him in September to help make the page a little friendlier.

6. Corporate Partner’s 2014: COL (Ret) Janssen stated LTC (Ret) Marc Snook is the Corporate Partner Coordinator/Administrator; he will be doing all contacts with the Corporate Partners. The Marketing Team consists of CPT Vo, Maj Choy, CPT Lulay, LTC (Ret) Welch, CPT Ortega and LTC McReynolds. They will be out pinging people who are past corporate Partners and those who maybe future ones. Also, at the conference we will have Company Grade Officers go to those who were Corporate Partners this year and other companies from Oregon and give them information for our 2015 Conference.

7. Old Business:

a. Bylaw changes: COL (Ret) Janssen stated the minutes and the By-Laws are on the website.

b. Update on Merchant Account: COL (Ret) Janssen stated she is still working on finding another vendor at a lower cost.

c. ROTC Request: COL (Ret) Janssen stated she emailed the person in charge at North Salem High School. The check was sent to his home.

8. New Business:

a. Review of Association Books: Lt Thornberg indicated he and Lt Erwin did a review back in April. Looks like the last review was conducted in September 2004, one of the main issues raised was Strategic Plan and to see if we could get IRS 501C3 Exemption Status. He states that is not possible based on the Organization type we are. We are currently a 501C4 and do have a 501C3 Charitable Educational Fund. He looked at the NGAUS website and reviewed their By-Laws. They are a 501C19 as opposed to a 501C4, the 19 just gives additional benefits to Veteran’s Organizations, something we should probably consider in the future. He is still waiting to hear back from NGAUS as to whether donations to our organization could be deductable up to and including membership dues as well.

Another major concern we had was in regards to revenue. What we could track was everything that was deposited into the bank account, can’t track anything that is not deposited. Theoretically, although I don’t think it would be very possible for funds not to be deposited into the account and no way to verify the dues list. There was also concern on the yearbook sales which could be considered Business Related Taxable income. Also, there was a concern on some of the employees/contractors with the organization.

Lt Erwin stated there are high points when it comes to getting audited by the IRS when it comes to Independent Contractors. There is a distinction between employee and Independent Contractors, by the code or law, the Officer of an organization is an employee. Roberta is an Officer but being paid as an Independent Contractor. This needs to be looked at in more detail because she is technically an employee but not being paid as such. We were able to determine based on the Secretary of State’s website that the Organization is a Corporation which then creates the whole employee status. He believes it was touched in the previous review but not sure if any resolution was taken. We made note as to it needing to be followed up on and corrected going forward. We also reviewed the expenses which were reported within the books provided which was taken from the bank account. Additional support is also better than less. Suggests having backup to show the expenses are legitimate. Another one was related to the general bookkeeping was to separate expenses instead of lowering income and also having checks written out to Cash or things along those lines. Expenses need to be well documented. Lt Thornberg stated that generally the approving official is not the person who signs the check as well.

COL (Ret) Janssen stated some of the things that have been implemented in regards to the review. All the credit card statements are filed; not only does she have an eye on anything paid by credit card, so does Robin. She has a folder for conferences and Robin has a separate log for checks that comes through the office. Instead of writing checks for cash, we will write checks out to the Major Commands for Hospitality rooms so they can account on how they spend it. She will follow up on the employee status issue.

b. Contract for Association Executive Director: Brig Gen Stencel indicated that COL (Ret) Janssen’s contract is year to year which is up. He asked everyone to think about how we want to approach this going forward and discuss at next meeting.

9. Next Meeting: the next meeting will be Thursday, August 7, 2014 at 5:30 PM at the ARC in Salem. Pizza will be served. Meeting was adjourned at 6:15 PM.