First, The Wedgefield Examiner did not write, or put any resident up to writing By-Law Change #2.
Current By-Law: "The Treasurer shall have custody of all property of the Association including funds, securities and evidence of indebtedness. He/she shall keep the books of the Association in accordance with good accounting practices and shall perform other duties incident to the office of Treasurer as may be required by the Board."
By-Law Change: "The Treasurer shall have custody of all property of the Association including funds, securities and evidence of indebtedness. He/she shall along with the Board contract the services of a Certified Public Accountant to keep the books of the Association in accordance with good accounting practices and shall perform other duties incident to the Office of Treasurer as may be required by the Board."
COMMENTS:
Recently, The Wedgefield Examiner provided a history of 5 different treasurers in three years. The reporting to the residents has been all over the place, hardly anything that can be termed "standardized sound accounting practices". The current administration has smirked about the cost of hiring a CPA, yet failed to lay the total cost of our current treasurer's so called "accounting function" on the table. Not one of the people involved in the accounting function holds a MBA, let alone could be called a CPA. Again we are at the whim of the treasurer in power. As with the financial reporting we may be being left intentionally in the dark. These so called EXPERTS on our board may think our residents are too dumb - oops, non expert enough to question.
If the three year financial accounting history presented at this site, bored you, or you felt this board should be left to run with their cohesive expertise, the events of the WPA October meeting should make you stand up and pay attention. Treasurer DeMarchi publicly thanked a concerned citizen for providing him records to complete the 2012 audit. How does this meet the standard of the By-Law quoted above? Remember, "The Treasurer shall have custody". Do we need to require that the board provide a map of the association indicating which homes in the plantation contain our records, financial or otherwise? What excuse could anyone possibly give for this situation? Not one that should be tolerable to any of us.
This board should consider what they are doing. Not only regarding our records, this incident just further indicated their lack of competency in listening to anything this expert treasurer has to say. This very board voted to allow a contract with our current president, who is running for re-election on our 2013 ballots, to repair the gate house. What does that have to do with the treasurer and sound accounting practices? I encourage the board to go to the 2008 audit. During the period audited a board member received funds from the organization for printing services. It was noted in the audit report. Additionally, when the 2009 board put printing out for bids, that particular printer's bid was almost twice that of the firm awarded the bid. Your treasurer voted for our current president to perform services for the very association he presides over. This can only be viewed as a conflict of interest, poor management, poor legal oversight, and a lack of sound accounting, or good sound business practice.
Vote yes on this amendment and at least keep our records out of member homes, standardize our reports, have our books kept by a certified expert - a CPA.
