Budget Summary: After our review of items discussed at the annual meeting and working closely with Bright, I am pleased to say that the board recommendation were accurate and in fact has allowed us to invest a bit more than previously expected on what I am calling “The Landscaping Refresh” that Tess Johanson graciously volunteered to chair a committee for. Below is the summary and I am linking a more detailed review of the budget.
This budget is based on last year’s actuals and the reserve issues that we discussed at the meeting
Summary
Q1 – Q4 dues = $4520.00 – This will be billed at $1130.00 each Quarter
The additional assessment = $4400.00 – This will be billed once (this allows you to claim on assessment insurance if you have it all at once. If we sent two bills you would have to do it twice. (could force 2 deductibles and we did not want to do that) So, we will send one bill in January, but we would collect half in Q1 and the remainder in Q2.
Budget Increases
Some increase are just the actuals of this year carrying forward to the next year. Other increases and decreases are due to some catchup maintenance and historical budget Vs actuals review that suggests some areas were just budgeted incorrectly.
- Insurance went up slightly
- Proposing adding $1000.00 to storm damage account
- Increasing Building Maintenance by $400.00
- Reduce Pressure Washing $2000.00 since Bright includes this
- Gas and Electric up $500.00
- Landscaping Increase $10,000.00 for The Landscape Refresh
- Sanitation has mentioned an increase – We are budgeting another $1000.00 – It is likely it wont be that much, but want to make sure we are covered.
- I added an account that is all inclusive of Bright for $28,728.00. This includes all the items listed on the PowerPoint that is attached to this posting and I reduced other accounts that they will handle within that number
This budget along with the special assessment will increase our Reserves by $252,972.00 and will be added to last year’s ending balance of $166,500.00 for a total $419,472.00 by the year’s end. Of course the ending balance will be less the planned expenditures that we reviewed at the annual meeting. I am confident that next year the special assessment amount will NOT need to be this high.
Please review and place your comments in the Comments section below. Homeowners, I want to reiterate, I am all for transparency, but please don’t submit questions for breakdowns on each account. Those that are changing substantially are listed above and next year’s Reserve money spend is in the PowerPoint. I am happy to break out accounts during the year and is included in the financial reporting, but this post is a high level review, and should lead us to an eventual vote on the budget by next Sunday.
Your board, and myself as the elected President are ready to go get stuff done! (I wanted to use a different word there 🙂
Once we all review this, we will vote on this budget through our voting software to approve the budget.
I am truly excited that we are taking responsibility for our property and look forward to the improvements soon to come.
12-6-2020= I was just wondering WHY? we have to be assess again for the money all the owners have paid in thru H O A fees, $160,000 that are already in reserve? The board said from last year there is a override from last year of $22,ooo. They would like for that $160,000. which all of has paid in to not be touch, so assessment of the $22,000. be paid again by the 0wners Twice, that over ride of $22,000 should be paid out of the reserve that what it is there for?
Sounds like it may be a small Christmas gift year, as well as a tight tax for all, if there is any money left.
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL
Duff this was discussed at length in the Annual meeting. In fact, I reviewed it in the board meeting we had right before the annual meeting. The assessment from last year was from the concrete and the budget overrun. The 22K you are speaking of was money that was budgeted to increase our reserves so that the items in the reserve study could be addressed. This is what all of this has been about, increasing the reserves so the large items that we need to address – Railings, Roof, Paint\Re-skin and eventually the parking lot can be addressed. Feel free to call me if you would like me to go over the math again. You have my number.
Posting for Brian Zimmerman
“If I hadn’t been here this weekend I would have never know to vote. And don’t think the board if being fair when you start out and say “vote” yes for the budget. I voted no as I don’t want to pay almost 3 times what I am now. This isn’t a 200 unit complex and don’t believe we need over 65k in reserves.
Hope you can and will post this. Thanks, Brian Zimmerman “
Brian,
Sorry about you not getting the emails. Obviously the email that I have on file for you must be wrong. I have updated it to the email address that you sent me this e-mail. I think you meant that we don’t need 65K in the cash account. I agree with you on this topic, but again in my opinion the amount we have in reserves is low. I am asking the accountants to put a cash flow study over the past two years to see what the ebbs and flows have been and then adjust accordingly. Thanks for your input
Total Number of Votes as of 11/26/2020 at 7:00 AM tallied 37 – Obviously we need to have more people vote before any motions can be made.
Yes = 20
No = 17
Once we reach the required majority vote – I will publish the results of who voted what – Again I cannot change the numbers so please don’t suggest that this vote is somehow not valid. I am the only one who has access to the vote results and I represent all of you. Whether it is Yes or No, it is my responsibility to carry it out. Yes means we begin the planning process, no means we vote on another budget until we pass one. Either way I am fine. Thanks to those of you who have been supportive of that effort.
Total Number of Votes tallied 27 – Obviously we need to have more people vote before any motions can be made.
Yes = 15
No = 12
Once we reach the required majority – I will publish the results of who voted what – Again I cannot change the numbers – the system records it and I would ask people to stop suggesting that something nefarious could be done with the vote. My job is to represent the association’s desires, not mine or any other individual. Please stop suggesting otherwise, it is insulting.
Don,
Again I have not met you as far as I know so certainly have no reason to expect you to be dishonest. I never said that and I would never hurt your feelings on purpose.
My point is that more transparency not less is the perfect way to alleviate those concerns. I believe most people agree with that.
Thanks George – I feel like the now regular updates that I am providing should help. I will update the count here each day until Sunday or until we reach a majority. I truly appreciate your response here, Thank you !
Don,
What is the purpose in waiting to disclose? The board is counting the votes so wouldn’t you want to have complete transparency so everyone knows there are no shenanigans? Otherwise you risk challenges including legal ones.
George there really is no purpose other than the idea that I felt showing a total might influence the vote. The board doesn’t know the real time number because I am the only one that has admin access to the system. I did share the totals with them (not who voted what) last night at the board meeting just to let them know that we did not have a large number of people even voting and that I might need them to help me to remind people to vote. Since I shared it with them I will share it with the rest of the community. There will be no Shenanigans, because the software tallies the votes lists who voted and includes the ip address – and I would be STUPID to try and change that. So I am not sure what you mean by challenges. My only job is to carry out what the homeowners want not manipulate a vote.
Stay Tuned I will put the tally in the main body instead of just this response
Thanks, Don
When voting on line was discussed in past board meetings it was decided to show the count as each condo owner voted for transparent reasons. If this is not done i don’t know how you can claim it’s a valid vote.
We will disclose it when the voting is done so everyone can verify their vote. I have to aggregate the information and then I will post the results
Don,
What is the purpose in waiting to disclose? The board is counting the votes so wouldn’t you want to have complete transparency so everyone knows there are no shenanigans? Otherwise you risk challenges including legal ones.
Any homeowners who vote NO on the budget and are wondering if your vote counted you can email me at george@forttennessee.com. I will compare the “NO” votes I receive to the final tally. I will never reveal how any person voted.
Thank you Don, so this will be a yes or no vote on the budget only. I was a little confused with the 4 or 5 options listed. I was attending the meeting via Zoom and had a hard time hearing and understanding all that happened and the matters being voted on resulting in me not voting my two votes on Bright Management, voting, and the borrowing money.
Understood- for the record, Bright and the methodology by which we are addressing the assessment (homeowner VS borrow) both passed nearly unanimously, so regardless of vote, so it would not have changed things if you had an opposing opinion. (not saying you do, or would have, just informing)
My wife and I both voted yesterday evening for our Units 105 & 405. In the sample voting I noticed as we voted you could see how many yes and no votes have be tallied. Now I am noticing we cannot
see the tally of votes. We need to be transparent and put that up on the voting platform. Do we need to start all over on voting?
thank you Don again
No problem, so glad I could get you on the site
I am a homeowner at Waterford in bldg 204 unit 405 since 2008. I was on the board for the first 4 years, and being a CPA, I did the books during that time.
During the early years there was not support for building up reserves because there were many units for sale by original owners and increased dues were not wanted.
While I never completely agreed with that, I do not see a reason to try and rectify that in a $4K+ assessment over 6 months. I do not see a reason to increase reserves by $200K+ in one year.
Lets face it, dues of $3K+ in January right after Christmas is NOT the way to go!
We are trying to make up for 12 years – that does not need to be done immediately!! That is just bad financial management. Any needs/wants can be addressed in a responsible measured way.
Any increase in reserves needs to be spread out over time (several years).
George I appreciate your input, but in my opinion if we do it that way we will not be able to handle many of the things that are truly negatively impacting our property to the point that it will soon become a an issue of safety. Again I respect your opinion, but it is not “bad financial management” it is just a plan that was proposed to take care many of the issues that are impacting our property, no one has “mis-managed” anything. For the record, I dont want to come up with the money either, but I would rather do that then watch our property values plummet because we ignored the property
Don,
I do not know you so do not know what your background which would obviously influence your opinions.
My background is that I have been in financial management my whole life. As a CPA,MBA,CMA,CCM, I have been CFO at several billion dollar+ publicly traded companies. I also have owned and run several smaller companies including a real estate investment company with over 40 properties including multi-family developments such as Waterford.
So when I say my opinion is that this huge infusion of cash is NOT a good investment and NOT good financial management, that is where I am coming from.
While that doesn’t mean I am smarter than you, it does mean that I have seen these same problems many many times and have seen these same well intentioned actions play out very negatively time and time again. I really do not want to see this investment go bad as well.
If you have talked to realtors as I have you know that the dark cloud of tripled dues has already affected property values negatively. Spreading it out over 3 payments instead of 2 payments doesn’t really fool a potential buyer lol.
A measured and financially responsible and appropriate response to the reserves is what is needed. That would be spreading the assessment over more than one year. That would mean also billing it over an extended period. While members of the board my have gotten “insurance” against this assessment knowing that you were proposing it so it doesn’t cost you, it does cost everyone else.
Someone told me that the “board” threatened to walk out or quit if the budget wasn’t passed. That is really a silly threat and not really the type of board that I think is best for making rational decisions.
If the board does walk out I volunteer to help out again as treasurer as I did for the first 4 years. I welcome any response or opinions. I would really like to see the ongoing tally of votes. What is the reason for withholding that info for the first time on this vote?? Is there going to be a mass mail-in vote drop on the last day of voting lmao!!!
My name is Mark Pafford. I have owned 2 units at Waterford for the past 3 years. I completely agree with Mr. Fort. We need to address the serious problems this year but not everything has to be done in 2021. What makes the board and this management company think that we will be able to find contractors to do all this work in this up coming year when we could not find the help last year because of COVID. This virus is ramping up and will be a big factor in getting repairs done in 2021! There are many of us that do not have the “Assessment Insurance” needed to help up pay for this large amount of money therefore I will not vote for Option 3. We have owners that are retired or out of work that are on fixed incomes and budgets therefore asking us to well over double the amount of money for HOA dues and assessments are extreme to ask of us. We need repairs and things done but not all in one year it will not happen. Also, we need to hire management, contractors, CPA’s, ect. that are not related to any owner at Waterford, that is a conflict of interest and should not be allowed as being done, lets be transparent. Lastly, the Smith Lake area is small in regards to information traveling around the area being good or bad, with this being said many people and real estate agents have already heard about our annual meeting and the board suggesting the dues and assessments going from $3687.00 last year to $8920.00 (option 3) for 2021. Furthermore, I was in the final negotiation of trying to sell one of my units and was told the people interested have backed out. I gave them last years HOA fees and added they could increase a little, but I and they never imagined to this extent. The question was asked to me, is Waterford is falling apart? If we spread the repairs and maintenance out over the next 2,3 or even 4 years the value of our property will increase as it has been not plummet.
Mark- Thank you for your input – For clarity the only thing that is planed for next year is as follows:
Railings & Paint the Patio area for ground floor units – 166K
Paint External Doors and all breezeways with no slip paint – 25K
Misc. EFIS – 30K (items that could lead to more damage)
Rotted Wood in TV Room 25K
Landscape 10K
Obviously things have been tough this past year to get done, but I believe this list can be tackled. As you can see this is over 255K – So it is not all at one time. I agree with you that all the things that we need to do cannot be done in a year.
Yes these items do need to be addressed but, lets paint breezeways not doors, repair EFIS in the really bad areas and continue repairs next year. Also, landscaping budget can be cut in the same manner to help the owners of Waterford in these very tying times. There are a few options that can save us from HOA fees increasing from $3687.00 this year to $8920.00 this next year.
When are we expected to vote on the options the board has purposed and will there be an email or mailed information to each home owner so as everyone has time to evaluate all the information we have so far.
The information that we will use to vote is located here. There is a file with the P&L, The PowerPoint details the amount and where it will be spent, and this page summarizes all of that information as well. We plan to put it up for vote next week – voting will likely start on Monday. We will give till Friday the 27th to get all votes in. I will send an email directing everyone to the online vote. Keep in mind we are voting on the passing of the budget only. Votes on the process of voting, bright management and the fact that we want to owner finance it, instead of borrow money has already passed at the annual meeting. If people are not ok with the budget as it is presented they should vote no, if they are ok with it, they should vote yes. If it doesn’t pass, the board will pull together another recommendation until such time the budget passes.