ACM minutes Wed Nov 8, 2023

Topics: first budget meeting, reserve fund and operating budget, management election, budget year to date

All committees please submit your budget requests by November 15.

Present: Eliza (fac), Linda, Ben, Kerry, Larraine, Hannah #9, Michael, Emily, Lynda, Starla, Kay, Laura, Vin, Tobi, Lila, Joe, Cyd, Chelsea and Amy

Exercise: choose an adjective that alliterates with your name. Pick a partner and tell them. The partner should try to figure out what you mean by it.  Trade off.

Conflict Support

Handouts: graph of importance of issue vs. importance of relationship. low I, low R avoidance, high R low I accommodation, high I low R competition, high I high R collaboration, compromise in the center. Ladder of inference: make observations, select data among what I observe, add meanings, make assumptions based on meanings, draw conclusions, adopt beliefs about the world, take actions based on my beliefs.  Reflective loop, my beliefs affect what data I select next time.

Reserve Fund and Operational Budget

A reserve analysis determines the amount of money needed in the reserve funds.  Reserve funds cover the cost of repairing, replacing, or restoring common areas and facilities that have a useful life of three years or more and a remaining useful life of less than 30 years, if the cost cannot reasonably be funded from the general budget or other funds.

Reserve funds can only be used for the items included in the analysis unless approved by a majority 67% of the members of the association of unit owners.  May be used for daily maintenance only if approved by a majority of members or if there is a shortfall. Do analysis no less frequently than every six years, review & update no less frequently than every three years.

Almost 62% of HOA fees is going into the reserve.  ~$153K balance.  The most recent analysis assumes 4% inflation.

Vinnie is working with Dale to update the analysis, adding things we've noticed are deteriorating faster than anticipated and rescheduling items we think we can make last longer.  Dale does a site visit and gives us a questionnaire on what we've done.  Costs about $2500.

Management Election

Management has five members.  There are three officers, President, Secretary, and Treasurer. Scott's and Vinnie's terms are ending. Cheryl, Kay, and Jorge are continuing. Members must be a home owner.

The management election is the one time we make a decision by voting. We use a sociocratic method for the election.  We have a round of nominations, a round of the nominator saying why they nominated that person, a round of general comments about the traits that are needed for Management and how the nominees fit, finally a round in which nominees may accept or decline the nomination and then a vote by secret ballot.  Each household has one vote, although a household may split fractional votes.

Budget Year To Date

Jorge sent an email showing the budget year to date as of the end of September.  Today's presentation includes October.

Categories that are over budget: Income, gas, landscaping, maintenance. Gas, colder winter last year.  Re landscaping, Cheryl is still working with Gardner to get them to reimburse us for the landscaping work necessitated by their trencher damaging our irrigation, so that category may decrease.  Maintenance, replacement of several deck membranes (note that units with decks have a 'deck factor' surcharge included in their fees). We have a lot of deferred maintenance, and reactionary rather than pro-active maintenance increase costs.  If we can catch up, we'll have a breathing space.

We need to do as much as we can do hold down the costs in the "non-discretionary" landscaping and maintenance categories by doing as much work ourselves as we can.

Water is under budget, not merely because the lawn died.  We had a wet summer which helped hold down the garden costs.

Committee budgets don't roll over into the next year. Money not spent returns to the general budget. 

A budget is a planning tool. Things don't always go according to plan so flexibility is necessary. 

Committees who feel it necessary to overspend their budget must justify it ahead of time to Management.

Committee requests are a plan for what they expect to need.  During budget meetings, committees have an opportunity to justify their planned expenditures.

We are overbudget by roughly $9K with still two months to go.  There is money in the bank account (from years we haven't spent everything) so we won't actually run out of money.  Condo law says Management can decide what to do with it.  Old money acts as a float so large bills like insurance can be paid.  Covers over-budget expenses but will go fast if we go over-budget often.

For future meetings Ben will include account balances in presentation.

Sunday December 10 ACM will discuss alternative income streams.  Be creative!

Thanks to Vinnie, Ben, and Jorge for joining Linda on the book-keeping team.

Announcements will be distributed by email.

Emailed 11/12/2023.