May 2025 YTD Variances. $8269 Legal Paid in May!

You have to know what you are looking for, in order to find out what is missing!

The Financial Overview Report for May 2025 was available at the July 1st Board Meeting. It should be online by now (May 10), but it's not. If you want a copy, call the HOA's office at 803/865-0609.

On Page 2 are the Variances. Variances are Over-Spending. Variances are shown by Month-to-Date (MTD) and Year-to-Date (YTD).

One huge omission on Page 2 is the line for Totals. 

Q. Why is that left off? 

A. So that you don't easily know how much the Over-Spending is.

There are 13 Lines of Over-Spending on Page 2.

And there is one very important, 14th line that is omitted: Line 6500 Legal/Professional Fees.

Looking at the YTD Variances, the 13 Lines on Page  2 total $63,574.09. A reasonable person would ask, "Where is that money coming from?"

You won't hear that question asked at a Board meeting, and you won't hear an answer. Shouldn't that worry you?

Now, about Line 6500 Legal/Professional Fees.

The HOA paid out $8,269.92 for Legal in May, making the total paid out in the first five months of 2025 $13,024.69. It looks to me like the HOA finally started paying the lawyers for the unauthorized lawsuit. 

The Budget for the first five months (Line 6500) is $8,333.35, resulting in a Variance (over-spending) of $4,691.34. This variance is not reported on Page 2.

The first question is "Why is Line 6500 omitted from Variances in 2025?"

Legal  (Line 6500) is the fifth-largest variance! Did CAMS just happen to overlook this variance, or was CAMS directed to leave that line off the Variances Report?

When the Variance for Legal is added, the new total YTD is $68,265.43. That's the over-spending in the first five months of 2025.

Had the 2025 Budget been prepared correctly, all these "variances" would have been incorporated, and the Board would have been faced with increasing the Annual Assessment on January 1, 2025 by $50. ($50 x 2480 properties = $124,000 additional revenue)

Why did the Board "blink" at the pre-board meeting at the end of October? Why didn't the Board receive the true budget at the November 2024 Board Meeting? And why didn't the Board discuss it and then vote on it?

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