Center for the Study of Services

“Starting in 2021, form 990 is prepared by an outside cpa firm. For fy 2024, the reports are completed using audited financials prepared by css's accounting consultants. The financials as well as the 990 were reviewed by the president and the director of finance for reasonableness. A complete copy of this form was provided to all members of the governing body.”

“Css has had a written conflict of interest policy that is shared with all staff on hire an annually thereafter. Annually, board of directors and staff are asked to fill out a conflict of interest form and any potential conflicts are discussed and addressed by unconflicted members of the board.”

“Each year, in the board's final meeting of the year, the board deliberates on, and sets, the compensation for the organization's president (ceo) for the following year. The president is not present for these deliberations or decisions, and none of the other board members has a conflict in relation to the president's compensation. The board's deliberations on this matter have taken place in executive session with neither the organization's president nor the staff person who records minutes of the rest of the board meeting present. The board's policy is to contemporaneously document its deliberations. Form 990, part vi, section b, line 15b: the organization's president determines the compensation of all key employees of the organization. There are twelve key employees and there are no paid officer's other than the president. In making these compensation determinations, the president considers information he collects from irs forms 990 from other organizations, salary benchmarking data, has informal discussions with executives of other organizations employing persons with similar skill sets, assesses each employee's contribution to the organization, assesses the disruption to the organization that might result from the employee's departure, assesses the employee's level of effort, assesses the employee's fit within the organization's culture and high ethical standards, and considers various other factors. Salary changes are documents in the employee review process.”

“We make the organization's governing documents and conflict of interest policy available to any member of the public upon written request. We do not make the organization's financial statements available to the public, but we will make the organization's forms 990 available upon written request, although we prefer, for convenience, that members of the public get forms 990 through guidestar.org.”

“The process has not changed from the prior year.”