NYC General Assembly # Occupy Wall Street

I agree that something significant should be done. I have gotten the distinct feeling; however, that those in charge of the money, like things just the way they are — opaque.

I was informed by an ex OWS banker that plans to have WGs use debit cards instead of cash was nixed by Finance. They prefer using cash. Now why would that be?

I invite Pete Dutro, Victoria Sobel and Bre Lembitz to step forward and join this — or any other public OWS conversation. It is utterly ridiculous that those who control the money, refuse to partake in the OWS movement on any other level except in an exclusive opaque manner or in Dutro’s case to participate solely by speaking to the mainstream media where he never fails to identify himself as the head of finance. Come on Pete, man up.

And everyone else — who is tempted to run to their aid with denials and accusations — stand down. Let Pete Dutro, Victoria Sobel and Bre Lembitz speak for themselves.

Shazz, I think your idea has some merit and needs to be a bit more thought through. I am not feeling to good today so accept the following partially thought out response accordingly.

All donations need to be deposited.
Every WG should be given money in check form.

To have all the separate accounts, opened by OWS is a nightmare. Each WG should open their own or deal with the funds in their own way. If each one gets their own account, you have to have signers and can well end up with the ‘big money’ questions we have today.
Having individuals from every WG rotate in and out of finance is a terrific idea. Though is a crew gets in and has no idea of the basics of accounting, a real mess can ensue.
There needs to be extremely transparent people who are the check signers. Their actions need to be verified. They cannot work in a back office, sight unseen. Additionally, you cannot put every OWS WG person on the main account as a signer. You loose all controls (not control) if you do.
Those out there that ae accountants will know this stuff better than I and can better explain the proper principles and reasons.

All that (and tons I missed) needs to be thought through. I think too, you will find that the soul of your idea is exactly what Accounting/Finance Transparency has been struggling to accomplish. Show the books to everyone. Lets all take a look see to ensure all the “T’s” are crossed and all the “i’s” dotted.

Shazz, very well said.
There are a bunch of people who feel the same as you. There is no real reason for the lack of transparency except peoples personalities. Which is complete and utter BS (as you nicely stated). Never has anyone given a valid reason for the lack of transparency. The most insulting reason to date was it was a ‘need to know’ sort of thing. Incredible!
No one is supposed to be the leader. People can offer advice if they have expertise. Funny thing is, if advice is offered and it is sound, it is followed. WE should not be following anyone who does not speak and keeps secrets. If the silence is due to incompetence, then say so. There is nothing wrong with admitting you are not a wiz at something. I know I am not a wiz at much! However I am damned sure not going to follow anyone that gives me the ‘Trust Me’ line we have been hearing our entire lives. Look where it got us.
I am far from an accountant or legal person. But I learned through mistakes to understand some basics.
Be honest with other people and yourself
Tell people the truth, all the time, even if they do not want to hear it
If you do work, be proud of it. Do the kind of work that makes people want to pat you on the back.
In finance, this means you work with open hands. You handle the money (both cash and the books) like a table person in a casino. Someone is always watching. It is not that you are not trusted, but that the watcher might catch an error or be able to improve the process. If you are doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear.
Balance the books a the end of every day.
Know it is not your money. This reduces its significance to pieces of paper and scrawls on a book. Worthless to you because it is NOT YOURS.
Always ask for another person to learn your job. As soon as possible, give that person your job. Let them train another person. You move on.

Hearing your mindset Shazz brings comfort. Twinkles!

@sallyarks Good points re: autonomy. however with regard to the items from the Declaration:

There is no monopoly, we are all free to seek funding for our initiatives wherever we please.

Any “catastrophic failure” of economic policy is on all of us, as Finance was not responsible for every uptwinkle on every proposal.

IMHO, there have definitely been setbacks and losses due to poor planning. Still, I hardly think our part in raising the general political awareness of the citizenry, reclaiming public space first and foremost for the use of the public, and making activism and civic engagement socially acceptable and “sexy” again can be classified as a failure. Well worth ~$600K over 4 months when assessed from a macro perspective, if you ask me.

Also, I’m not quite seeing how media control comes into the picture here… please elaborate.

@sallyarks I don’t claim to know everything that happens or has happened with OWS funds. I agree that we need to run things more transparently and professionally (WRT to compliance with GA or Spokes-consented budgeting and guidelines), if only so that we are able to move on as a team and with our funding fully intact rather than in the grip of the IRS.

As far as I know, the only reason we haven’t currently engaged outside auditors to comply with tax requirements and get our books sorted is because the last proposing group was insistent on a person that the GA attendees were not comfortable with having the final say in hiring and oversight of the auditors. Maybe it just needs to be brought to GA again with a more transparent structure re: the outside firm and the audit itself… actually it would now have to be a pair of props – unfreeze in order to retain auditors.

Personally, I don’t have the bookkeeping and tax code knowledge, let alone the inclination to be the person proposing or hiring/monitoring… but I do see the need.

I definitely recommend linking up with someone who is generally onsite to do the talking at GA for those unable or unwilling to stand before the GA in person. No one has to wait for Finance to authorize the GA to hire an auditor, but the GA does have to consent to such a proposal before finding a firm and giving them access to our books. (this is just my understanding off of the top of my head… if wrong, please do correct me where necessary) Asking why we don’t have sufficient transparency or compliance re: expenses or tax code, rather than writing up the proposal to enact said transparency and audit and putting it in for GA seems kind of inefficient.

Even *if* I thought that there was some effort to defraud or deceive us WRT to the management of the GA fund, IMHO it makes sense to flush any corrupt parties out by putting them in a position of directly overruling the GAs consensus in support of funding a professional (and legally necessary) audit.

If Pete or Haywood (or anyone else for that matter) are in fact opposed to opening the books, let’s have that opposition be made publicly in response to a publicly consented statement of support for funding and initiating an audit.

Right now, there hasn’t been a formal directive from the GA to fund and conduct auditing to my knowledge, so there hasn’t been a formal opportunity for anyone to refuse a given plan of action.

In fairness:

I’ve seen Heywood, Bobby, Susan and others at plenty of GAs.

What you say about the AGJ makes sense at a glance to me, but I have heard otherwise stated (IOW, we do have a requirement to conduct our own independent audit yearly with an outside auditor) by members of the Finance WG. It would be good to get a firm yes or no on the matter.

From my limited understanding of tax law, it may well turn out down the road that some projects and WGs spin off and become coops, 501c4s, PACs and retain varying degrees of direct coordination with the NYCGA and OWS. Nothing of the sort is happening or required at the moment that I know of, but I’d appreciate more info if anyone can provide it.

Friends of Liberty Square GA is the name on the bank accounts. Would make sense that that org ended up with the Occupy Wall Street TM after the GA declined to reimburse Wylie for the filing fees. I definitely recall hearing announcements in the park regarding the non-profit/bank arrangement (though I’m not 100 sure offhand that GA consensus was reached). My understanding is that this is also the org with an actual legal arrangement with AGJ re: our donations.

I agree totally regarding the lack of transparency and resulting misinformation and rumors. There have been days where I have heard 5 wildly different figures stated as our bank balance, with 2 or 3 different hypotheses as to who is playing what games with our funds – all from people who almost definitely have no first hand evidence for what they are repeating.

To me, this is worse than any mismanagement of the funds alone… morale and the trust of the public is probably more difficult to recoup than a few hundred thousand dollars. When people hear that thousands in donations may have been stolen by our own staff, or that no two of us even give the same amount as the current balance, it’s not exactly inspiring folks to trust us on economic issues. The books need to be audited and publicized… preferably with an announcement or Q & A at a GA when everything is sorted and final versions of docs are online. We need to be able to say with 100% confidence and firsthand knowledge that our finances are managed in a totally legit fashion. I want to be able to rattle off bullet points to shut down that kind of foolishness at will!

The more accurate and transparent our bookkeeping process becomes, the less room that is left for speculation, and the less divisive the subject of money will be within OWS itself. It’s hard to have a dispute over whether money is missing or how it was spent when all parties see the same transactions and receipts. Likewise, when some neocon shill “journalist” says we spent the donations on a new Bentley for George Soros and 100 lbs. of drugs , it’s nice to be able to “show one’s work” to the contrary when calling BS.

Never mind the cash right now: we need to be empowered with the truth.

$.02

The books ARE open. Jesus Christ. They’re not perfect. But what do you expect from a bunch of amatuers who operated for the most part under a canvass tarp in a park. What other organization that you know of posts their donation and expenditure data in almost real time? Christine is next to me doing data entry and going through stacks upon stacks of receipts from december. It’s horrible horrible work. Those of you who think we sit back controlling #OWS should join our working group and see the tedious nonsense that we have to do every day to keep this occupation running.

Shazz is wrong, for the five millionth time in his life, about our feelings toward an audit. It is true that an independent audit would “violate” working group autonomy but the finance/accounting working group has been desperately seeking the help of a CPA and bookkeeper for MONTHS. We are public about this. There have been articles written about our search for a CPA for fuck’s sake.

http://www.newser.com/story/137291/occupy-wall-street-seeks-accountant.html

Again, as I always say, PLEASE JOIN OUR WORKING GROUP. We have open meetings to sign up Fridays at 5:30 in the Atrium and we will get you trained. It is no fun AT ALL and you get shit on for it by everyone in the movement. But it’s important work.

I didn’t come to this movement to deal with receipts and balance books. I and everyone else in my working group stepped up to do the job no one else wanted to do or would do and we’ve kept this thing going. That’s why I’m here. To do good work and keep this movement alive. But I’m just about at my wit’s end dealing with trolls like Monica and Shazz. I came to this movement to do direct action and get even with the crooks on Wall Street.