Establishing a baseline

As I considered the best and most productive way to start this process, it seems establishing a baseline of factual financial information starting at Dec 31, 2007 would be most appropriate.  For some of you reading this, you will quickly realize the redundancy as most of what I will state has been shown on several occasions the last 5 years-- most recently in the 2014 budget process where we presented a 5-year look back to the MVF Board to show the Foundation's financial and operational turnaround.  That said, here are some facts relative to the 2007 vs 2012 audited financial reports:

                                                 2007                2012
Operating fund balance           ($322,139)    1,596,919
Amount borrowed from the Reserve Fund to pay for operating expenses                   $682,451       (295,942)
Contribution made to fund future reserves
                                                  14,936        725,000
MVF net income                       (337,261)       602,383
Total Assets                            8,765,375      12,927,480
Cash and investments              4,089,298       8,428,552
Accounts receivable                  431,432          689,246

Wages and benefits                 4,877,411        4,161,251
W&B adjusted for Maint activity  3,711,975      4,161,251

2012 savings from eliminating the maint activity $845,436 (2007 maint wages/benefits $1,165,436 vs. 2012 fixed price contract with Brickman $320,000)
Maintenance Fund balance, 12/31/2007   ($711,088)

The improved state of the financials is clearly demonstrated on each successive audited financial report form 2007 to 2012.  MVF's financial reports were audited by Draper & McGinley, an independent audit firm located in Frederick, MD.  For 2013, MVF has engaged the Malvin Riggins as the audit firm for the next 3-5 year period.

While there is simply too many blogs from Mr Hiban to individually respond to, my next post will start to correct various aspects of his most recent post and will center on one of the following topics:  MVF Investments - understanding how fixed income investments perform in a rising rate economy; Reserve studies - how to follow a current, board approved plan; Budgeting 101 - Understanding the difference between capital and operating budgets; 2012's budgeted solar panel project - getting the #'s right.

As I conclude this post, I can't help but wonder why so much time was spent providing so much financial information without any input or conversation with MVF's management.