Regina Wunsch vs. Rudy Parker - GLA Accounting Concerns

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Admin
Administrator

Posts: 1,657

Regina Wunsch vs. Rudy Parker - GLA Accounting Concerns Dec 11, 2015 10:03:10 GMT -7

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Post by Admin on Dec 11, 2015 10:03:10 GMT -7

On December 7th, 2015 Regina Wunsch voiced concerns at the GLA Board monthly meeting that the financial statements were not 100% accurate. Although she had exchanged emails with Board Treasurer Rudy Parker before the Board meeting they were not able to correct all the errors Regina discovered in her review of the data in Quickbooks. Rudy acknowledged that there were still errors and promised to fix them. The Board agreed to an email vote on the Treasurer's report once the errors were fixed. Regina's concerns were the latest public charges in a months long contentious disagreement with GLA Board Treasurer Rudy Parker and bring to focus money management, confidentiality, transparency and computer security issues.

A little background information from the best of my knowledge.

As I understand GLA Board history Rudy Parker was the lead person in bringing the software program known as Quickbooks to the GLA Board over 10 years ago. Rudy set up the initial accounting procedures, created the databases and then turned them over to the GLA Board. The GLA Board continued to use Quickbooks and many of the procedures Rudy developed until the accounting work was given to Minnick Management. Regina Wunsch did not approve of Minnick Management's accounting and formed a group with Robert Wallace, Linda Ullrich and possibly other landowners called "Concerned Citizens of Glastonbury". Regina requested bank statements, cancelled checks, invoices and many more financial documents from the GLA. She became a self appointed auditor. After presenting her work and conclusions to the GLA Board, Walter and Regina purchased a new laptop computer, installed a new copy of QuickBooks and gave it to the GLA Board.

Over time the GLA Board accepted many of Regina's methods of accounting. Many landowners saw Regina's methods as beneficial and appreciated having accurate and detailed financial statements. Regina taught the new treasurer, Janice McCann, in her methods of accounting. When Janice resigned last summer the GLA Board appointed Rudy Parker as treasurer.

Both Regina and Rudy were architects of their own accounting systems and as to be expected, there were differences of opinion as to how how data should be accounted for. Regina wrote an open letter to the GLA Board on October 24th and detailed some of the problems she was encountering. You may download that letter here:

Open Letter to the GLA Board- By Regina Wunsch - October 24th, 2015 - NOTE: Small type, best read at 100% + magnification.

Regina voiced her concerns again at the December 7th GLA Board meeting. Scroll down to the 3rd post.

On December 10th Regina Wunsch emailed an open letter to the GLA Board with the subject header "Resignation". It is not clear to me whether she is offering her resignation or asking Rudy to resign. You may download that letter and reach your own conclusion.

Open Letter to the GLA Board- By Regina Wunsch - December 9th, 2015 - NOTE: Small type, best read at 100% + magnification.

Regina also included three Quickbook screen shots to substantiate her case. This is the first time I know of that any Quickbooks data has been made public.

Screen Shot 1
Screen Shot 2
Screen Shot 3

These are the objective facts to the best of my knowledge. I urge every reader to add to, correct, refute and/or confirm the facts I have presented so our community gains a greater understanding of them. I think the landowners would benefit if Rudy Parker, Regina Wunsch and the GLA Board publicly responded.

Commentary and questions I have for the GLA Board, Rudy Parker, Regina Wunsch and our community.

Some landowners believe that Rudy Parker is incompetent. Regina states that Rudy cannot be trusted. Does the GLA Board agree and will they remove Rudy from his position as Treasurer and possibly strip him of his directorship as well?
Rudy Parker has been accused of essentially committing fraud by increasing the amount of an invoice in Quickbooks by one penny so it would match the amount of the check written to cover it. His reputation has been called into question. Given that the GLA Board has a confidentiality agreement with every director will Rudy be allowed to publicly defend his actions and reputation? Will Rudy Parker face criminal charges?
If Rudy is removed as a director will Regina Wunsch be appointed as his replacement and assume the role of new GLA Board treasurer?
If not, would Regina Wunsch be willing to run in the next election for a position on the GLA Board and for treasurer?
Currently Regina Wunsch acts as an unofficial auditor for the GLA books. She is a check on the Treasurer and a provides a balance to him. Who will provide the check and balance if Regina becomes treasurer?
It is not clear how many computers the GLA books are on. Is it just one laptop that Regina and Walter purchased for the GLA? Or several personal computers plus the laptop? Does the laptop have the ability to be remotely connected to? Is it networked so other users can view and edit Quickbooks data from remote computers?
How secure is our Quickbooks data? How many people have access to it and are able to edit data? Is the Quickbooks data protected by security software? Does the laptop get regular security scans to check for remote access and/or Quickbook data edits?
Given that data is easy to change in Quickbooks when was the last time the GLA Board had an official audit by an outside party?
Concerning future audits. Can the results be shared with landowners? It is the landowners money. Do they deserve to know how and where it was spent?

One Solution I Propose:

We need 100% accurate financial documents and we also need 100% financial transparency. If landowners could see monthly check transactions, bank statements, copies of invoices and accompanying notes then everyone could verify the accuracy of our financial statements if they wished to.
I recommend that the GLA Board immediately start to release copies of all bank transactions every month with the financial statements. At the December 7th GLA Board meeting this information was deliberately withheld from the landowners even after it was requested. I believe all landowners should have access to the exact same information that is presented to the GLA Board during public meetings.
The GLA Board should commence with an audit by an outside party ASAP. All results and working papers should be available to the landowners.
The Confidentiality Agreements that the GLA Board requires all directors to sign should be made public. While it is important that the GLA Board speak with one clear and disciplined voice to litigants it is not proper that directors be dis-allowed from speaking privately or publicly on their own. In this case a man's reputation is in question and he should be allowed to defend himself. Fellow Board members should be allowed to express their own views and present their own solutions. "None of us is as smart as all of us".

Please feel free to add your own thoughts, comments, criticisms, solutions, etc by posting them below.

Last Edit: Dec 11, 2015 10:10:31 GMT -7 by Admin

The Administrator, Tim Brockett, is also a Director on the Glastonbury Landowners Association Board. The opinions expressed on the Forum are his own and may or may not coincide with the views of the GLA Board.

leokeeler
Full Member

Posts: 188

Regina Wunsch vs. Rudy Parker - GLA Accounting Concerns Dec 11, 2015 15:22:57 GMT -7

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Post by leokeeler on Dec 11, 2015 15:22:57 GMT -7

A neighbor of mine read me a letter he was sending the Board complaining of inaccurate invoicing. He showed me how payments for the two lots is is billed for are messed up. He talked to Rudy about this and for some reason Rudy hung up on him. There has been no call back on either correcting the billing problem or apologizing for the behavior.

I have heard Regina will no longer work with Rudy because so many actions he takes are illegal and she does not want to risk getting caught up in court or State reviews.

Regina's letter to the Board points out problems with the following: What payments are made for; lack of description of payments; inaccuracy and correction process being illegal (i.e. the $0.01 error is not about the penny, but legal book keeping); payments made without an invoice; how petty cash is handled and recorded; inaccurate payments for road grading (if this is inaccurate how can Members trust getting their monies worth); donations for road work handled improperly (how can we expect future donations) and tracking and payment of employee hours.

The Board approved hiring a book keeper, but that is just to record the info received. I do not believe the Bookkeeper will, or should, be accountable for properly identifying everything she receives. The Treasurer is responsible for knowing the Covenants and Bylaws that guide accounting, not the Bookkeeper.

Garbage in garbage out - WHO IS RESPONSIBLE.

I've been concerned about the book keeping and talked to Regina several times and I've asked if an audit should be done - all the way back to 1997. Regina has said things are getting worked out. She thought the Board would acknowledge the problems and ensure they were corrected.

IF THE BOARD DOES NOT ACT TO CORRECT THIS, SHOULD AN AUDIT BE CALLED FOR?? WHAT IS YOUR OPINION??

Admin
Administrator

Posts: 1,657

Regina Wunsch vs. Rudy Parker - GLA Accounting Concerns Dec 11, 2015 18:58:48 GMT -7

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Post by Admin on Dec 11, 2015 18:58:48 GMT -7

Administrator's Note: Regina Wunsch emailed me and requested that I post her email response of this afternoon. I suggested that a posting by her would have more meaning, integrity and strength. However Regina is quite busy working at SpecTec and still prefers that I post her email response. It follows:

Tim,

I would appreciate it if you would post the following correction.

I did not form the Concerned Landowners Group. I was approached by one of the members to join. I do not remember who. Robert Wallace had requested the financials going back a few years at a special community road meeting. His wife, Mary, made the official request from Minnick.

When the financials were received the group did not know what to do with them. I offered to extract the information by account to get comparisons for expenses throughout the years there were reports for.

I discovered the books were not set up according to standard accounting practice. Loans payments were set up as expenses, loans taken out from landowners were entered as income, the chip seal costs and repayment balances on the handouts did not match what was on QB, etc.

The group met with the board of which Richard Bolin was president of at that time. It was stated the GLA did not have the money to fix the books.

I offered to pay for it myself and to hire our accountant Robert Storey, CPA who is audit certified to do the job.

I spent hours tracking down the correct information including breaking down the chip seal invoices and payments into principal and interest, so Bob could put things into the right accounts and assure correct balances.

Since the book set up was wrong from the beginning in 2005, Bob Storey recommended starting a new.

The "new" books were set up by Robert Storey according to standard accounting practice. Not according to some method I personally devised.

Since Nathan Minnick was not familiar with standard accounting practice either, I worked with Nathan at the request of the board to assure the integrity of the data. I received a copy of QB, all of the invoices and all of his month end reports, including the check register right after month end. I would review the entries, notify Nathan of any errors and advise him how to fix them, if necessary. He would fix everything and send me the new reports for review before sending them to the board.

I worked with Janice in a similar manner, except that I actually went to her house and we did the reviews and fixes on site. If something needed more time to track down, I made a copy on a USB stick and worked on it at home in a test data base. Then we met up again and fixed everything in the live data base.

I have not developed my own accounting method. I keep the books for Walter's company according to standard accounting practice. Doug Holm CPA, a former IRS business auditor, practicing in Livingston at the time set them up. Our company books are much more complicated than those of the GLA as they involve actual costing (versus the standard), inventory, cost of goods etc. besides a more complex payroll. Since the GLA is also a corporation, that is also how the GLA books have been set up and must be kept.

Thank you for posting this correction and clarification.

Regina