Off we go towards home. Back through the Park. Through the strobe light
torture of a lodgepole pine forest on a clear mountain morning. Quickly
through the Grand Tetons. Out of the parks through Dubois, Burris,
Crowheart and Lander. The weathered white cliffs and towers of west-central
Wyoming give way to red. When we reach Lander, we're back to home altitude.
All we have to do now is not gain any more altitude than we lose the rest of
the way. Lander is the first Wyoming town lately that has a population
greater than its elevation.
We crossed the continental divide in the Park at 8,200 feet. Then we
crossed it again at 8,300 feet. Later we crossed it at 7,900 feet. Again
at 9,600 feet. Again at 6,700 into the Great Divide Basin. From there,
water doesn't flow to the Atlantic or the Pacific. It doesn't go anywhere
from there. Just before Rawlins, we cross it for the last time at 7,100
feet, and stop for the night.
We're covering fifteen hundred miles on this trip to Yellowstone and back.
That last swing we took around the western slope of Colorado involved 475
miles spread out over two weeks. Not much of a travel schedule. I commute
more than that from Louisville to the office for two weeks.
We did an interesting job this last trip. A nonprofit organization. They
have been in existence for four years. Their financial statements say they
have lost about a hundred thousand dollars a year. Add up all their assets
and subtract all their liabilities now, and they have four hundred thousand
dollars of negative equity. Not a pretty picture.
But talk to them, and that's not the picture the conversation paints.
They're running a project that will liquidate soon. They capitalized the
original land purchase and associated costs up front, but since then, they
have been expensing costs they will be reimbursed for at the completion of
the project. When I pulled those costs out of their income statements for
the last four years, and capitalized them too, their financial statements
looked completely different. Now they have a small positive equity, and
look downright respectable. Now their financial statements match their
story.
In Durango, I found an organization that told me they had been losing money
the last couple years and they didn't know why. They were concerned they
might have to close. It turns out they had recognized a bunch of contract
income several years ago they hadn't actually earned yet. Now to show when
they spend it, they had to show losses. I restated the prior years, and
income pretty much matches with their expenses each year. Now their
financial statements match what really happens. They don't have to talk
about closing. They are doing just fine.
Nonprofit organizations have to watch out for every dollar they spend. They
save a few thousand dollars by not having an audit, or they pay for an audit
from a local company that lacks experience with nonprofit organizations, and
they end up running their organizations based on information that isn't
true. It's too bad that has to happen. I like it when we can help.
