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All-Community Meeting minutes, Sunday, November 24, 2024

Topics:  budget

Present: Ben (fac), Emily, Vicky, Kerry T, Coleman, Chelsea #19, Kay (notes), Hannah, Stephen, Jorge, Alex, Vinnie

Venue & Time:  Common house sitting room & online, 3:00-4:40 p.m.

Events

  • Sign-up sheet for Thanksgiving.  2:00 p.m. Thursday.
  • Caroling Sunday Dec. 22, 5 pm.

Action Items

  • Check with Salt Lake Lawns about doing snow removal this year.
  • Look for payments to Salt Lake Lawns for snow removal.
  • Apply to Urban Farm Program to get reduced water rates for the two gardens.
  • Where is the Zoom subscription categorized?  'Communications' would make sense. 
  • Look at free online meeting services.

Budget

Budget draft hasn't changed since last discussion except Ben added notes on budget requests.

12.65% increase.  Average $43 fee increase.  (Down from 13.58% after fixing double-counting of QB fees.)

Income

Fees.  Second tab of proposal spreadsheet has fees for individual units.  Association fees are split into two lines, because January is on the old fee schedule $8,821 and eleven months are charged on new budget, $110,211. 

Q. Would it be helpful for residents to pay their full year's fees in a lump sum? A. We have enough float in the checking account that we don't run short.  An individual typically gets better interest on a personal account than the association gets from business accounts.  If paying the lump sum by check, that would be a single check to deposit and save the 1%.  If we want people to do it it might require an incentive, but the incentive couldn't exceed what the community would gain.  Monthly checks from everyone are a noticeable amount of work.

Transfer fee on unit sales; we anticipate possibly two sales (average).  To start charging a reinvestment fee instead, we need to revise CC&R.

We always ask contractors etc. if they charge a fee for accepting a credit card. If they do, we pay by check; if they don't we pay by card and get cash back rewards.

Guest room fees.  Need to do some book-keeping to reassign guest room fees that got paid by Venmo to the correct category; currently part of the total under fund-raising.  Since some of them were Vicky's guests (via Welcoming), she is happy to help identify the payments.

Suggestion:  Everything else is going up, room fees should be adjusted.  Would require discussion.

Fund-raising provided an estimate of what they think they can raise; they will be getting an earlier start in 2025 than they did in 2024.

Interest.  Expect less interest because of lower rates and because when CDs mature the funds will be put in the operating checking account.

Other income  includes pay or play, electric car charging, c.h. donations, other donations.

Landscaping & Maintenance

Landscaping decreased their request to $5K.

Maintenance.  With the two people running it both stepping down, we don't have a break down of the expected maintenance work.  Deck door frames on stacked units #1 and #15 weren't installed correctly and need to be redone.

Management Committee

QuickBooks charges 1% for automatic payment of monthly fees. Since fees will go up, this charge will go up.  Two households have continued paying by check; we aren't charged a fee, but someone has to deposit them. Budget draft double-counts this, under both 08410 Bank Service Charges and Book-Keeping Software and Support; Ben is removing it from Book-Keeping. 

Q. Does our bank allow us to run ACH pulls without use of QuickBooks? A. Not that we're aware of.  Usually rather than doing an ACH, banks send checks, which someone has to deposit.

Premiums.  $22,661 general insurance, $18,880 earthquake insurance.  Common house and workshop will be in the master policy rather than being on their own separate policy, which had a $1K deductible.  The deductible now will be $25K, and instead of filing claims the association will be responsible, pulling the money from the reserves, which will then need to be made up the next year.

Licenses and Permits.  Business license and updating Management members with State.

Bookkeeping.  Our book-keeper is Rachel Ward, CPA & stay-at-home mom. 

Bookkeeping Software and Support.  QuickBooks subscription.

Reserve.  $54K into reserve, 10% less than in 2024. 

Q. Are the reserve funds just in money market and CDs?  Nothing in brokerage?  A. The usual recommendation is not to have money needed in the next three to five years in the market, and our reserve isn't to the point we have that much.  Historically it was in a bond fund, but when the market dropped sharply Management didn't have the risk tolerance to ride it out, and sold, losing $14K. 

Facilities

Snow Removal.  Salt Lake Lawns.  We got snow removal in 2024; need to check why Actuals shows zero.

Water.  Had a substantial leak on the east side, so bill reflects that.

Gas.  What would a mini-split for the workshop cost? Heat pumps can't handle especially low temperatures and need a backup furnace.  Got an estimate of $1200 for furnace & heat-pump to replace the c.h. east wing furnace, which is on its last legs; included a 220V line. To be practical, we would need a/c in all three common house zones, rather than some areas being swamp cooled and some a/c.

Committee Requests

Parents/Child Infrastructure.  $500 request to finish c.h. play structure and other.

Farmette.  Compost, netting, seeds, water meter, digital scale.

Commons House.  Fan in upstairs bedroom, etc.

Committee Reports 

Welcoming will forward the information on Cheryl's unit.  Please forward it to anyone you think might be interested.

Unit 5, new residents Sara and Steve, children Fion and Sparrow.

Hannah and Stephen are engaged.

Emailed 11/24/2024.

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