I anticipate liveblogging the LNC Executive Committee meeting tonight, at least the public parts.
McArdle says no motions were noticed, so there can be no motions during the meeting. Attendance is being taken. Meeting came to order at 7:43. Roll is taken.
Treasurer says he will go through the powerpoints he has distributed.
Restricted accounts are almost all convention money. We put up a $25,000 letter of credit for the Michigan lawsuit. There is total cash, but that includes convention income. Restricted cash does not include convention money. We had expected $120,000 /month in revenue since December. It did not arrive. Reserve adequacy is the lowest we have had.
We have had over 200,000 in cash, but some is restricted, e.g. the letter of credit. The unrestricted cash is around $80,000.
Revenue: We assumed close to $120,000/month. We have been ca. 60,000 short in the first two months. Fundraising: We are getting a 3:1 return on investing in fundraising instead of the planned 5:1 but we have also spent less than planned. Ballot access fundraising is weak. Half of the shortfall is in ballot access fundraising.
Budget was 281,000 for the first two months. We spent 236,000. Spending has gone down, but there is a gap. Question if we can cover VA and NM petitioning. KY is starting. We do not have money for more states. Ballot access for Illinois, New York, and DC are planned not to be done. We do not have the money to do them at the moment.
We budgeted $6500/month for accountants, but they are costing $10,000/month. By error the prior year audit had not been paid. $18,000 has now been paid to Frye& company for last year, but the other payment will be due soon and was not included in the budget.
Hagopian recommends: Conserve cash. Put costs on the credit card when allowed. Hold cash in the bank. Gain credit line soon, before it is needed. Budget assumed we would make money on the convention. We need to plan if the convention falls short. We have no evidence that the convention is falling short. Having but not using a credit line is a smart move.
Q: Malagon: What happened that the audit was not paid? Apparently the email with the bill was not received. What was the date of the Invoice? 9/30/23. The people to whom it was sent had already left. There is a question why the Bill did not reach the Chair.
Q Tuniewicz: When did we segregate convention cash? Hagopian: We have been doing it at all times on financial reports. In February we realized we were required by the policy manual to have a separate account and opened it? Q?Have we paid convention bills we usually pay at this time, e.g. A/V. Answer: We have not made deposits yet. We do not yet have an A/V contract. We will not owe any payments for several weeks. McArdle: The Room block requriement in the convention contract has been met. Food and Beverage has not yet been met. She says she is more concerned about overall convention income.
Chair says she has been monitoring revenue situation. Told staff we need to raise $125,000 a month. The drop dead line was $100,000/month. Errors happened. There were cautions and reprimands. There will be consequences at the end of the month. This will be discussed more in executive session. We paid for FreedomFest in January, and by paying early we got a steep discount. We need to cut $17,000/month on a regular basis. We will try to sign contracts to do more with adwords. Looking back over the last year and a half we tried to do too much, which creates a lack of organizational focus. We need to raise a lot of money and support our affiliates. Perhaps this is too much for an organization our size.
Q: Have there been special February expenses? A: Nothing in particular.
McArdle: We have found $17,000 in cuts. We will have more at the April 7 meeting.
Malagon moved to go to executive session with the Executive Committee and all LNC members except Mr. Tuniewicz and Ms Vest.
Blankenship I won’t attend if some LNC members are excluded.
Hagopian objected. Hagopian: Everyone needs to be in these meetings. We would be excluding two regions. If this happens I will not be present in the executive session.
Vest: I am the only LNC member here from my region. Executive Committee members will vote to exclude my Region from attending at their peril.
Malagon Yes
Yeniscavich Yes
Nekhaila No
Hagopian No
Watkins Yes
Harlos Absent.
Chair will not vote. Claims it passes. Chair will distribute a written report to all LNC members.
A series of LNC Members left at this point. Particularly noteworthy is the departure of Treasurer Hagopian, declining to attend an LNC ExComm executive session from which some LNC members are excluded. Vest observed that this executive session was dealing with financial matters, which is in Hagopian’s remit.
[Addendum: The Zoom software reports when people leave the meeting. The following list was created by the Zoom software, and reported who had left the meeting as the executive session was starting. Several people were reported as having left and rejoined…those people are not in the following list. We have no way to confirm whether the software is accurate, but the following is what the software displayed in the chat channel, reproduced here via cut and paste. It is impossible to tell from the Zoom software which people joined the executive session and left afterwards We are aware of a claim that this list is incorrect.]
Todd Hagopian (OK) left
Dustin Blankenship left
Will Hyman left
Dustin Nanna left
Pat Ford left
Richard P. Burke, Alt., Region 1 left
Mike Rufo left
Adam Haman left
Meredith Hays left
Tuniewicz was excluded.
Vest was excluded.
Tuniewicz noted that for decades all LNC Executive Committee meetings have been open to all LNC members.
End of meeting.
Note that people “leaving” as described above can mean leaving the main zoom call, or moving to the separate zoom “room” where the executive session was being held.