A Member’s Quick Tutorial to GVR Finance – prepared by Ted Boyett

Prudent financial management is one of the Boards three major duties, along with establishing policies and hiring/holding the CEO accountable.

Introduction

As I’ve been campaigning for GVR’s Board of Directors, many members have asked me questions regarding GVR’s financials. To try and shed needed light on these; I’ve prepared the following summary, based on my research over the past months. I hope you find this information helpful. Thanks, Ted Boyett

Where to find GVR’s financial statements

I’ve heard a lot of frustration from members about what seems a lack of transparency regarding GVR’s financials. Actually, an extensive amount of financial information can easily be found on GVR’s website: www.gvrec.org.

• Budget and Financial statements – these can be found under the “Governance” button. Just pick “GVR Financial Documents” and you will find the latest.
• “Deeper-level” financials – as expressed in its name, the Fiscal Affairs Committee (FA) is responsible for the fiscal affairs of GVR. You can review the documents from the FA meetings on the GVR website. Again, just hover over the Governance button, and then select “GVR Committees”. From this, select Fiscal Affairs, then select Meeting Documents, then select View Committee Documents. This brings you to the meeting documents for all the Committees. From the dropdown for Fiscal Affairs, choose the monthly meeting you’d like to review. Under Exhibits, you will find extensive additional financial information regarding GVR. This process may seem onerous, but it only... (More)

(Note: this message is brought to you by Nina Campfield, candidate for GVR Board of Directors)

Friends of GVR has been asked to weigh in on the subject of GVR’s purchase of the Canoa Hills Clubhouse. As Director Randy Howard stated in a board meeting, the potential purchase was discussed in open Planning and Evaluation Committee (P&E) meetings for 8 months before any action was taken, giving ample time for members to provide comments.

Here's what we know for a fact:

• The advertised asking price was $450,000 for the Clubhouse and $250,000 for the parking lot, for a total of $700,000.

• AM Valuation Services appraised the land and building together at $540,000. A link to the appraisal was printed by GV News.

• Included in the appraisal document was a comment that “Discussion with the listing broker indicated that the owner is willing to accept around the mid- $500,000 range for both parcels combined.” We don’t know if this came from the seller or was speculation.

• We don’t know any details of the negotiation.

• GVR paid $504,000 for the clubhouse and land, excepting the large parking lot. This was $46,000 less in cash than the listing broker indicated the seller wanted. As part of the deal, the seller donated the parking lot to the GVR Foundation, establishing a tax deduction.

• Negotiation is still underway regarding the usage of the parking lot, between GVR, the GVR Foundation, and Pima County. We don’t know what the final... (More)

The GVR financial overview provided by Carol Crothers unfortunately included much misinformation. Let’s correct the record here. I appreciate all efforts to share information, but facts do matter.

First, Crothers complains about waste in labor/personnel expenses. I agree – significant monies were wasted on personnel expenses in 2020, and continue to be wasted this year. The reason for this waste is due to last years’ GVR4us-led Board’s (the political faction Crothers has long associated with) decision to buyout the contract of our former CEO, Kent Blumenthal. GVR4us agreed to keep paying Blumenthal even though he no longer has to show up at work. These payments will total close to $500,000 of wasted GVR member’s money, and left GVR without a CEO at the onset of a global pandemic. It is also surprising how now Crothers expresses some hope for Blumenthal’s replacement, Scott Somers, after GVR4us’ repeated attacks on Scott last fall before he was even able to begin his job.

Next, Crothers states “In our GVR managed operations account, we lost $122K.” This is factual, but also misleading. Last years’ GVR4us-led Investment Committee directed GVR’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) to invest the Operating Cash funds in a somewhat risky floating rate bond fund. This proved very unwise when Covid hit, and the financial markets crashed. Prudent financial managers keep funds needed for operations in low risk investments. The GVR4us floating rate fund fell significantly last March when the markets crashed, dropping approximately 13% in two weeks. These funds are held... (More)