Jack Brown to Board, 10/21/2002
To: TMOC Board
Copy To: Mike Rintelman
From: Jack Brown
Subject: Board Priorities in the New Year
Date: October 21,2002
Our present organizational structure gives me no right to provide leadership to the Board or to set your priorities. I am a hired hand and the Board ultimately leads the ministry. Thus, the following are merely suggestions to be heeded or discarded as you wish, but items I nonetheless would like to see the Board address in the New Year. I recommend that these areas become the focus of sub-committees on which members of the Board may serve and/or advisory "experts" of your choosing.
- Careful thought should be given to how the Board functions. What processes need to be in place to ensure the selection, equipping and engaging of Board members. (We know of outside consultants that can do a one day Board Structuring Seminar to give basic direction.) How can we structure the Board so that motions are drafted before Board meetings and need only minimal discussion and approval at the meetings? With recommendations presented and approved by this committee, then the next step is to...
- Update our by-laws. There are simple needed like change of address, but substantial changes as well. The current by-laws no longer reflect the reality of how things operate at the Board level. So we either need to align ourselves to the existing by-laws or revamp them to coincide with how things currently work or how we intend them to work in the future (as per bullet one above).
- The rising cost of health insurance is a major concern. We are told by United Health Care to expect a 32% increase this coming year! The below chart indicates this increase, followed by very conservative calculations of 25% per year over the next five years.
(I am encouraging my wife to find full time employment with health insurance benefits in the new year. I do not know how successful I will be. Her health has been poor lately with a nine-day stay in the hospital in early October. Lesser plans than our current one would have incurred similar costs to the ministry and created co-pays that would have devastated us financially. My proposed budget, as is, buys us another year to find a solution to this dilemma. It appears possible that if the Board technically cancels our Health Insurance benefit, then Mike and I could shop independently in the market place. State insurance, called HIRSP, is the only insurance that insures the uninsurable like me. This seems the most plausible route to stop this freight train coming our way.)The Rising Costs of TMOC Health Insurance 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Monthly 3,525 4,406 5,508 6,885 8,606 Annually 42,300 52,872 66,096 82,620 103,272 - We can explore the possibility of selling our building, for say $500,000, while moving to and combining our efforts with the City of Hope. This holds the potential of streamlining our ministry, enhancing our networking capabilities, and freeing us up from secondary responsibilities (building maintenance and management). I would see this as a very positive step if our investigation would reveal this to be in the community's best interest.
- I'd like to see the Board brainstorm and develop a "cash cow", source of increased revenue, which would bring in $50,000 or more annually within three years. This effort alone could stop the hemorrhaging of our reserve funds.