Sunday, December 3, 2006

Blog #1: "Im all right Jack, keep your hands off of my stack"

"There shall be no local accounts that exist without the authorization of the Director of Finance and without the signatures as designated by the International Office."

- P.1 under "Accounting and Finance"

"All checks must have either two regional signatures- one of the professional and the other of a lay leader or the signature of a field services supervisor"

- P.1 under "Banking and Contracting"

If this policy is to go into effect, your chapter could not hold any sort of banking or checking account without the authorization of International and the signatures designated by the International Office. What does this mean for your chapter? All bank accounts, even if they already exist, are considered void for chapter use until the Director of Finance authorizes them and signatures of various people are collected. Assuming that processing the hundreds of bank accounts that already exist and collecting signatures won't exactly be a cakewalk, chapter accounts could take months in order to be used.

This one is a doozie. Under this policy, every single check must have two regional signatures. If you bought supplies for a program and want to get reimbersed from the chapter, you have to meet up with your regional staff so they could validate and verify the checks. Even the smallest financial transactions all have to go through your regional staff. It is obvious, especially in spread out regions, that chapter cannot drive to the regional office every time they have to get a check verified. To sum it all up, your chapter is not allowed to spend money at all without the approval of the region.

Your Friend,
Brutus