It's time for bids on HOA Management

Is this the year when the CAMS contract for management of The Summit's HOA comes up for renewal? Wasn't it two years ago that Justin rushed through the renewal months early, because Angela was pregnant?

It's time to formulate the RFP - Request for Proposal. It should outline what the HOA wants, and then await the bids.

Justin made a comment a while back that no other professional HOA management companies would bid, because they wouldn't do things "the way the HOA wanted".

That was an immediate red flag for me, and I wondered just what The Summit's HOA wanted that other companies would not do!

One of the things I figured was they probably would not fudge (lie) on listing Contract amounts in the budget as Salaries; e.g., office personnel (who are not HOA employees), Safety Patrol (the Special Duty Agreement with RCSD). 

When I first looked at the financials and saw those as salaries, I then looked for the Line Item for the cost of fringe benefits, payroll taxes, etc. And found none! It turned out they were not Salaries, after all, but the former treasurer and the former Auditor didn't see anything wrong with listing them that way.

What is the total cost for CAMS to manage the Summit's HOA? $140,000 for office personnel plus $75,500 for management services plus payments to two other CAMS-affiliated businesses. What is the TOTAL?

Is the Finance Committee really powerless against Justin and Vernell? Does the Finance Committee even get a chance to look at the bids for management? 

Or does only the Contracts Committee (Justin Martin and Cliff Wilson) control contracts before they get to the full Board for approval?

Does each Board member study the bids before voting? Or do most of them just nod, when Justin says it's time to vote, if he even does that?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Annual Meeting, Barony Place Neighborhood - continued to 5/4/2024

Barony Place Neighborhood (Barony Place I and Barony Place II attempted to hold a Neighborhood Meeting this afternoon. Of the 78 homes, seventeen (17) homes were represented, and that was not sufficient to meet the quorum requirement of 26. The meeting was continued to Saturday, May 4, 2024, 1:00PM, at 44 Barony Place Circle. An effort will be made to have at least 26 homes represented in-person or by proxy. Three homeowners have volunteered to be on the Neighborhood Committee: Tracy Manderino (Barony Place II), Della Glynn (Barony Place II) and Gwen Hayes (Barony Place I). If a quorum is present on May 4th, those present, including by proxy, will elect the Neighborhood Committee. Once the Committee has been elected, it will select one of its three committee members to be the Voting Member for the next 12 months. The other two members will be Alternates. A new announcement will be distributed to your newspaper box, along with a proxy. If you will not attend Saturday's meeting, plea...
Read more

Open Letter to Barony Place "Voting Member"

An open letter to the "Voting Member" of Barony Place Neighborhood. Good morning, Billie, If you and/or an Alternate attended last night's board of directors meeting, will you please send out a recap of the meeting to Ann Stirlen and me (and to all the homeowners and residents in Barony Place)? About a dozen homeowners from throughout The Summit showed up for the board meeting  at the church  last night, only to learn from one person that it had been switched to Zoom, which allowed the board to meet in secret. Many of them had not received the email from the office that the board was (illegitimately) closing the meeting to homeowners. There are only about 1,800 (73%) email addresses of the 2,480 Members in the website database. I attempted to join the meeting on Zoom, as I am Attorney-in-Fact for Ann Stirlen, but I was not admitted to the meeting. The HOA's attorney has quoted a section in the By-Laws that she believes allows the Board to close the meetings. That spec...
Read more

Special Assessment Possible?

How would you feel about a $3,000 Special Assessment levied by the HOA against you and every other HOA Member (homeowner)? Article X, Section 4 in the CC&Rs allows this. Are you aware of that? Should the Board do everything possible to eliminate the possibility of such a Special Assessment? What is the Board doing that might just lead directly to such an Assessment? The HOA, by actions of the President (Justin Martin), the Treasurer (Vernell Butler, and the Safety Committee Chair (Dennis Rybicki) entered into a contact with the Richland County Sheriff's Department, effective February 1, 2023. They arranged for special patrols in the Summit at a cost of $48.00/hour. In the Special Duty Agreement is a Liability clause. It reads,  "The Requestor will hold harmless the Richland County Sheriff's Department from any and all claims or liabilities resulting from service and indemnify RCSD for any loss due to any injury of its employee unless there is a determination of neglige...
Read more