How Budget Process Should Have Worked

At the November 12th board meeting the Treasurer announced that the 2025 Budget had been received and it was balanced. There will be no increase in the annual Assessment (currently $510/year (payable $255 semi-annually)).

Why wasn't the Proposed Budget presented in public to the board at this meeting by the Budget Committee?

What's the Budget Committee? If you read the PRM (Art. II, §C, ¶1)), you (and the Board) will learn that it is a sub-committee of the Finance Committee that is responsible for establishing a balanced annual budget. It is to present the Proposed Budget to the Finance Committee and to the Board for approval. It is the Budget Committee that presents the Budget to the Board! The Budget Committee is to include members from the general community. That's you.

Did you hearing anything Tuesday night from the Budget Committee? I didn't, either.

Art. III §C ¶4 in the PRM describes how the Proposed Budget is to be prepared. The expenses of the HOA are developed first and should be conservative and anticipate growth. Once they know much needs to be spent, the Income Budget  is developed.

That's what the Budget Committee should have told the board. They would have told the Board that dues needed to be raised.

Apparently, the Board (or maybe one person on the board) didn't want it done that way. A decision was apparently made first that the dues would not be increased, and then the Expenses had to be cut so as not to exceed the Income.

Most business people know you can't run a business that way. It's called "sailing right off the cliff." What happens if you don't have enough money to pay your bills? You cut back on the things you can, like entertainment, travel, food, meds. 

What was cut out of the HOA's budget?

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