All-Community Meeting minutes, Wednesday November 13, 2024
Topics: budget
Present: Ben, Lynda, Alex, Michael A, Emily, Laura, Kerry, Mike W, Joe, Kay (notes), Coleman, Renae, Robin, Jorge
Budget
Insurance
Talked to agent. Claim in 2021 for Unit 5, fridge line sprang a leak while unit was empty, $7K. In 2022 C.H. upstairs toilet $3K. Agent says we are doing things right but
- construction, labor & replacement costs are going up
- fewer insurers who cover condos
- expensive natural disasters.
Moving common house and workshop from their own policy with $1K deductible to the master policy that covers the units, deductible $25K, which saves us several thousand.
Shopping around for different policies; have gotten a few recommendations of companies.
Q. Can individual units buy earthquake insurance if they want it rather than everyone? A. No, everyone or no one. Will ask potential insurers, but have been told the same thing by several companies.
The earthquake deductible is on a per-building basis, and is the responsibility of the unit owners of that building rather than the community. Unit owners are strongly encouraged to have an earthquake rider on their HO6 policy to cover the deductible if necessary. Without earthquake insurance any damage would be the association's responsibility (thus everybody's).
Income
Income we hoped for this year didn't come in -- less pay or play, didn't get CCR changed to allow transfer fee. Fund-raising wasn't in 2024 budget but raised a few thousand. Income from fee is one month at 2024 amounts, eleven months at 2025 amounts. Each unit is allowed seven nights use of a guest room, after which the unit owner is charged a $30 fee per night. The 'actual' shown reflects being behind on book-keeping and
Reserve
Looking at analysis, think we can slightly lower the amount going into the reserve.
The operating budget shows our contribution to the reserve but not expenditures from the reserve. A separate tab in the spreadsheet shows the yearly reserve expenditures. $32K this year for gutters and $16K for deck-roof repairs, $48K total.
Over the next few years will have major expense of repairing & painting stucco, estimate of $260,000, paid out of the reserve. This is also not something that can be different for different units; the association owns the unit exteriors. All units have some cracks; some have major ones. Not repairing will lead to damage to the walls.
The reserve is for (usually planned) large expenditures on maintenance and replacement on things that don't need work every year, so its purpose is quite different from insurance.
Large request from common house committee to repaint the common house interiors, just materials. Robin has volunteered to do the work. Cohousing people staying here will be paying us several thousand. Having a nice facility may help us raise funds in similar ways.
The Farmette is asking for $1K for tools and supplies. Alex calculates that the Farmette produced $7K worth of vegetables in 2024. Request includes a water meter for the water line to the Farmette, so they can know how much the Farmette uses vs. the other users on that meter.
Maintenance asked for $15K, may get $10K. The two people who've been convening Maintenance are both leaving the committee.
We overestimated our recycling costs for 2024, so estimate for next year is lower, despite Ace's rates going up.
For more information on this year's expenses, see the Budget vs. Actual statement Jorge sent out.
Q. What is 'water reimbursement'? A. The field north of the garden is watered from community water; there is a meter which is read about once a year and Mary has been repaying us.
Q. Why do we have electricity charges? A. Electrical bills include a flat metering fee even if you use no electricity.
The largest expenses in the budget, by far, are the $50K into the reserves and insurance premiums, which jumped $13K this year. For a property of our size our reserve should be several hundred thousand. Once our reserve is fully funded we might be able to drop that to $30K or so, but meanwhile we are trying to get closer to where we should be.
The insurance seems very high, but keep in mind it is spread among 26 units.
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