[Lnc-business] Executive Committee Conference Call - 7/24/14 @ 9:30 pm EST - NH Ballot Access

Thu Jul 31 04:27:41 EDT 2014

Joshua,

Restricted cash is money sitting in our bank account, but the donor
specified it is only to be used for a particular thing.  It would require
permission of the donor to spend it on anything else besides what they have
specified.

The largest pile of restricted cash we have had recently has been donations
for the building fund.  As of the end of May we had restricted funds of
approximately:  $8,300 for campus outreach (a donation from Dr. Lark, I
believe), $9,400 for the building fund, $350 for a radio ad project, and
$2,000 for the legal offense fund.

Most of our donors give us unrestricted funds, though, and it's then up to
us how we choose to spend it.

When you see the total cash amount on our balance sheets, you have to
subtract the restricted fund amounts to figure out what is available for
everything else.

When we create a budget, it does not create restricted funds because it's
not the donor putting limitations on what our cash can be used for.  The
budget is the LNC putting spending caps on certain categories, but the LNC
can later amend the budget and shuffle things around between categories
without having to go back to the donors for their permission to make those
changes.  (Though the budget may include a plan for using some of the
restricted funds, in which case only those lines are restricted and the
rest are not.)

If we have budgeted $1,000 for category X, but we have spent only $300, the
balance of $700 isn't restricted.  Restricted funds are cash already in the
bank account.  But the remaining $700 of spending authority for category X
is dependent on us actually receiving the budgeted revenues.  We might not
even have $700 cash on hand, though we have $700 left in the budget.

I am not aware of any open lines of credit that we have, though there are
party credit cards that we pay off every month.  Article 10.5 of the bylaws
forbids the party from borrowing more than $2,000 without prior approval by
a 2/3 vote of the LNC.  There is an exclusion there for "trade payables"
like when a vendor goes ahead and ships the product to us and then bills us
with the understanding that we'll pay in so many days.  That's not
considered borrowing under that bylaw.

-Alicia

On Wed, Jul 30, 2014 at 9:34 PM, Joshua Katz <planning4liberty at gmail.com>
wrote:

> What does unrestricted cash on hand mean? If money is budgeted for a
> certain use, but no expense has been incurred, is that money then
> considered restricted? If so, what would be needed to unrestrict it? If
> not, are we at risk of not paying our bills? Does the party have open lines
> of credit?
>
> Finally, given this situation, how can we cut costs associated with our
> upcoming meeting?
>
> Joshua Katz
> On Jul 24, 2014 5:05 PM, "Alicia Mattson" <agmattson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I inquired about our cash flow status, since things looked very tight at
>> the end of May and I don't think I have seen June financials yet.  Robert
>> Kraus provided me the following information, indicating that our cash flow
>> has gotten worse since May:
>>
>> Current unrestricted cash on hand is $110k. We are looking at the
>> following upcoming expenses: $26k in ballot access obligations for LPIL and
>> LPKY, Payroll $18k, Hyatt Columbus (estimated) $90k, Credit Card $21k
>> (mostly convention related). That's a total of $155. That would be a cash
>> shortfall of -$45k. I think if funds come in as they've been the last week
>> or so we can cover this over a period of a couple weeks and I can delay
>> some of the payment to Hyatt. Also NY has generously agreed to spread their
>> obligation over a 6 week period but that still doesn't leave us any wiggle
>> room for any additional expenses until at least Sept/Oct.
>>
>> We're currently in a financial hole.  In June of 2010 (a comparable point
>> in our 4-year financial cycle), we were approximately $200k better off in
>> terms of cash flow.  I believe some contributing factors to be the fact
>> that we hired a political director with "savings" from buying a building,
>> but we hired the position a year before we actually bought a building and
>> moved in so as to achieve any savings.  The building fundraising efforts
>> seriously cannibalized our general fundraising efforts.  We have a
>> political director and own a building now, but we left ourselves in bad
>> financial shape.
>>
>> We need to be building the warchest to get our 2016 presidential
>> candidate on the ballot, so on tonight's call I will be asking questions
>> like:
>>
>> 1)  Given how many of our affiliates currently have 2016 ballot access,
>> what is the ballpark estimate of what we'll have to spend in the 2016 cycle
>> to get our presidential ticket on in the other states?
>>
>> 2)  Looking at historical data in NH for LP U.S. Senate candidates, what
>> baseline % does the typical paper candidate get?  What has been the maximum
>> an LP U.S. Senate candidate has gotten there in the recent past?  In other
>> words, has presidential ballot access been successfully obtained this way
>> in the past, or is this a hail-Mary?
>>
>> 3)  What is the state party doing to contribute to this candidate's
>> ballot access effort?  Funds?  Volunteer signatures?  Etc.
>>
>> -Alicia
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 24, 2014 at 12:19 PM, Alicia Mattson <agmattson at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Robert Kraus provided me with the call-in details for tonight's
>>> Executive Committee teleconference regarding NH ballot access as follows:
>>>
>>> Meeting Time:  9:30 Eastern / 6:30 Pacific
>>>
>>> Guest Instructions
>>>
>>> Dial-in: 1 (217) 258-5588
>>>
>>> International Dial-in: 00 + 1 (217) 258-5588
>>> Guest Pin Code: 207730
>>>
>>> Alicia Mattson
>>> LNC Secretary
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jul 24, 2014 at 6:53 AM, Nicholas Sarwark <chair at lp.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> All,
>>>> There will be an Executive Committee conference call tonight at 9:30
>>>> pm EST to discuss spending ballot access funds to petition to put
>>>> Gardner Goldsmith from the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire on the
>>>> ballot.
>>>>
>>>> Wes or Robert will follow-up with the call-in details.
>>>>
>>>> -Nick
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Lnc-business mailing list
>>>> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
>>>> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Lnc-business mailing list
>> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
>> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Lnc-business mailing list
> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business/attachments/20140731/421b776d/attachment-0002.html>