Minutes of the May 2017 meeting of the New Wave Corporation/KOPN Board of Directors

The meeting was held on the 16th day of May at the Cope Ashlock room at the station, and was called to order at 7:05 p.m. Lisa Wright was visiting as a representative of the accounting firm to talk about the audit.

Attending members were Mohammed Sawani, Dan Hemmelgarn, Kevin Rae, Allen Vaught, Heather O’Connor, Boden Lyon, Laird Okie, Margot McMillen, and David Owens.

A motion to approve the agenda was made by Margot, seconded by Boden and passed by voice vote.

A motion to approve the minutes was made by Allen, seconded by Heather and passed by voice vote.

Boden Lyon requested that the financial reports be made available via Dropbox in advance of the monthly board meeting for the perusal of board members, particularly those on the finance committee. The auditor, Lisa Wright, confirmed that she would be capable of showing Kara how to create graphs to show the monthly trends etc. It was agreed by David that he will be able to make those documents available each month before the meeting.

Dan asked Lisa if we should have a separate account for the capital fund. She replied that it’s easier to keep track of funds if different accounts are used; she recommends it if the cash flow at some point comes in that would merit that action, especially if the bank charges a fee per account.

The idea of Kara attending a board meeting was agreed upon as a useful one.

A motion to approve the financial statement was made by Laird, seconded by Boden, and passed via unanimous voice vote.

The floor was turned over to Lisa. She said she is 90% finished with the audit, and asked if there is a budget for the year she’s auditing, or for 2017. There is not, for either. She asked about the specific restrictions of the grant we’ve received from CPB. The answer is that the restricted portion of the grant must be used for national programming. She asked when the employees are paid and how hours are kept track of, or if members are salaried. David and Kara are salaried, and Jill works a limited number of hours. She asked if they have an accrued vacation policy, and David agreed to send it. She suggested that the Treasurer (Allen Vaught) review and approve the reconciled statement each month.

She said that a budget or plan would be useful to assure auditors.

She was asked by Laird and Dan the following question: if the bookkeeping tasks were taken over by someone other than Kara, how much one could expected to pay monthly for that work. The answer was $200/month.

She asked about the in-kind arrangements, and David cited the example of the exchange for the tower. Items such as tickets that are given away on-air are given in exchange for mention of the business on-air.

She asked about how the billing system works, and the answer is that there are vendor files and customer files, all the bills are stored as PDFs, and any check written for a bill over $150 is co-signed by one of the individuals who are assigned this responsibility.

Allen asked how common and/or useful is to use an online version of QuickBooks, and the answer is that it is potentially useful, and common. One caveat is that it can be difficult to change a payroll check, but this shouldn’t be an issue because the station uses a payroll service.

Ellen joined toward the middle of the meeting, around 8 p.m.

David read the resignation letter from Tao, whose resignation is effective immediately. His letter mentioned the website maintenance being passed back to Charlie Turner, Tao’s vision for a program to train volunteers in podcast production, TSPA grant writing through the University of Missouri (TSPAgrants@missouri.edu), and Google AdWords Grants of up to $10,000/month for 501c(3) organizations. He had been working with several MU students on a grant for replacement of the MARTI, and David says he is also in touch with these students regarding these efforts. Programmers were complaining about not being able to upload their podcasts with the launch of the new site that he generated. The letter also mentioned the inaccessibility of David by phone, email or text, which are echoed by Dan and Allen. Dan pointed out that the by-laws include the General Manager maintaining liaison with the Board of Directors.

David accused the Board of being hostile under Dan’s leadership.

The issue of job descriptions was raised, as was the issue of Kara’s compensation.

Ellen made a motion that Kara provide documentation of all the functions of her job and the approximate time (hours in a typical week) consumed in accomplishing them. The board should also be provided with job descriptions for Jill and David. Allen seconded. The motion passed via unanimous voice vote. Margot suggested that board members should receive these job descriptions a week before the next board meeting.

Reports from working groups:

The membership group had met on May 4 and had a few things to report to the board. Tao had announced his departure at the beginning of the meeting and the subsequent group discussion included most of the things mentioned in his resignation letter, as described above. There was a focus on how to keep up with a changing media landscape, and how this relates to membership. The committee believes that we need to work hard at understanding what makes members want to support our organization now and into the future.

The equipment and facilities committee has not yet met.

The programming committee met, and discussed having a programmers’ party.

The finance committee has met twice, and discussed the general financial situation of the station.

A motion to adjourn was made by Laird, seconded by Boden and passed by voice vote. The meeting adjourned at 9:29 p.m.