As promised here are my notes from the last two MICE board meetings, combined since the topics were the same for both.
4/18/2022 and 5/24/2022 MICE Board Meetings
Conducted via Phone Bridges, Directors in Attendance: Richard Laager, Anthony Anderberg, Reid Fishler
Capital Credits and other Co-op Items
We are a 501.c12 entity instead of the more typical 501.c6 so several members accrued capital credits for 2012-2016 because of their contributions. We're under no obligation to pay them. When determining how to handle the retroactive 501c12 years, Richard and Kayla previously combined 2012-2016 as if they were one year for capital credit purposes. The accountants disagreed with that approach. They said we have to recalculate it year-by-year, with different treatment of the years with losses. The accountants would prefer a large correction in the 2021 books instead of re-opening 2012-2020 books. Richard proposed that we pay out capital credits for all of the years prior to 2017 to close those years out completely. The year 2017 was when we started collecting port fees.
More recent donations and donations going forward are accounted as good will, and the board discussed that we would probably be better off re-opening the books for the years 2012-2016 and reclassifying donations in those years as good-will also. This would be extra work for the accountants but would solve the capital credit pay-out issue - additionally it was felt that paying out capital credits would harm our case should we ever need to go back to the IRS in an effort to be reclassified as a 501.c3 organization.
The board also talked about the possibility of needing to notify members each year of their capital credit status/amount. We also discussed the best way to pay out capital credits, either as separate checks or as credits on annual bills. After some discussion it was felt that the benefit of less-paperwork was off-set by the effort required to explain variable annual bills, additionally 1099 statements would likely be required in either case.
Research on all of the above continues.
Epik / IP Volume Non-Pay Disconnect
The board decided to expel Epik as a member for 1) non-payment, and 2) failure to ever provide updated corporate information for their IP Volume entity.
They were given notice as required by the bylaws, that notice period has now expired, and they have been disconnected.
KC Remote Switch Proposal
The board discussed the proposal for a remote switch in Kansas City, with most of the specific pros and cons also being discussed and well documented on the MICE-DISCUSS list. It was agreed that this is an evolving topic that will need more discussion and thought by the community as a whole. After the inclusion of expected members the revised proposal was approved with directors Anderberg and Fishler voting yes and director Laager voting no.
The board also discussed several other items that will be made public at a later date.
Respectfully Submitted,
Anthony Anderberg
MICE Treasurer/Secretary
