Hold the Date: Thursday, August 23, from 6-8pm Central OAC will host a wine and cheese reception in the center. More details will follow.  We need 100% of our Board participating in this major event!

Thank you so much for responding to my email and contacting the candidates in your area.  We received several calls and emails today and the number of candidates responding has doubled from earlier.  I want to apologize for the harshness of the tone of my email Wednesday night and promise that next time, there will only be gentle reminders.

The Bylaws Task Force holds its first meeting at 9am today.  The first item will be developing a Memo of Understanding (MOU) between Central OAC and Central Pres.  Once a draft is prepared, it will be brought to the Board for action followed by consideration by the Session of Central Pres.

Last week I told you about plans for a Day Center at Central OAC.  I felt I should be a little clearer.

• There is a lot of planning to be done.  Meetings will be held with community partners, business leaders, the Mayor's staff, NPU's and others.
• We have a written plan which includes goals, activities, objectives and measurements.  I will share the plan at the August meeting of the Board of Directors.
• Once the planning phase is complete and funding has been secured (from sources that will not fund our current operations), the final recommendation will be sent the Board of Directors.  No commitments will be made until after the Board has had an opportunity to review the proposal, assuming there is one, and votes to either approve, modify or reject it.
• It will be at least six months before a proposal could be ready and I expect it may be even longer.    
• No funds will be spent until after the Board considers the proposal.

After his termination, Kyle Coffey filed for unemployment with the Department of Labor (DOL).  Churches are not required to pay State Unemployment Taxes (SUTA).  My understanding was that nonprofits with 10 or less employees were also exempt.  This meant that employees separated from a nonprofit or church were ineligible for unemployment.  Kyle's firing triggered an investigation by the Department of Labor and we were informed that only nonprofits with 4 or fewer employees were exempt.  We currently have 8 employees.  DOL wanted to go back until the time we reached 5 employees and require us to pay back SUTA taxes.  Celeste did an excellent job in working with DOL and we the amount we will have to pay this year is approximately $3,000.  We will include the new tax in the 2013 budget and I anticipate it will have a very small impact on our spending next year.

The Executive Committee will meet in two weeks to finalize a draft of the new Policies and Procedures manual, including personnel policies.  The final draft will be presented to the Board at the August meeting.

Director of Development.  When we first announced the appointment of Barry Snyder, he was introduced as our interim director of development.  Based on the unfortunate turn of events that lead to Kyle's termination, I made the decision at the time to hire an interim while we undertook a search for a permanent director.  At the time, I was not anticipating someone with Barry's experience being interested in the job.  Since our first meeting, and after Barry met with the Development Committee, I have concluded that hiring him in an interim position at this point would be a mistake.  Remember, the director of development is a salesman for Central OAC.  He would be ineffective and lack credibility in working with major donors, corporations and foundations as an interim because it would be known that we are conducting a search at the same time. 

I've hired him as the Director of Development (no interim) with the understanding that like everyone else, he is subject to the policy in our manual which calls for new hires to serve a three-month introductory (probation) period followed by an evaluation to determine whether the employee continues at Central OAC.  Wills Moore has agreed to help us set goals for Barry during the introductory period, as we do with everyone else, and we will work with Barry on the goals during his first three months.  He starts on August 1 and will be reaching out to Board Members to arrange a time to meet you.

This issue of "Heads-Up" is longer than I would like for it to be.  There was a lot to cover this week.  I hope you find it beneficial.