A Board Hell Bent on a Fee Increase, no matter what the numbers indicate

I've been contacted by owners who were confused by the budget presented by the board.

The board acknowledged in the letter sent to owners that "increases to reserves" aren't necessary. Yet, that is what they are doing. The board has options of how to use annual surpluses. The automatic one is to send annual surpluses to reserves. Other options include using surpluses to pay for costs in subsequent years or it can return the money to owners. This board did not acknowledge a potential surplus exists. The board budget indicates a surplus in income and Operations & Maintenance (O&M) budget.  That would indicate they intend to keep the money, particularly in view of the proposed fee increase.  Some board members may be unaware of what will happen to the surpluses or that the board does have options at its disposal.  I conclude there is a personal agenda on this board.

My best assessment is that we have one or more very greedy board members who are voting for an increase because they can personally afford one, and intend to funnel any surplus surreptitiously into reserves. When discussing the negative impact of fee increases on owners during a budget meeting a couple of years ago, our current president retorted "We should not cater to the lowest common denominator". When asked by a current board member "Is this fee increase necessary" during the November budget meeting our current president responded: "It is absolutely necessary."  Whereupon the entire board voted for a fee increase. So much for independent thinking, simply follow orders. Jawohl!

The source of owner confusion
The major source of the confusion for owners who did look at the budget involves the 2018 surpluses and yet the board is promoting an "approximate 1.88%" fee increase. Furthermore, the numbers indicate it is really a 1.66% increase.

I guess the new board can't handle arithmetic. I'll bet not one board member even brought a calculator to the budget meeting. Our former president ( a CPA) would bring his laptop. When I became president I did the same, and crunched the numbers under discussion. LOL. This is not surprising as the president insists she doesn't use a PC. That's pretty lame considering we have a very large community college adjacent to our HOA; she can see it from her patio. LOL.

One thing I don't understand is "Why didn't the board ask management to use "YTD 10/31/18" numbers? That would have provided a better idea of the projected surpluses. Apparently they didn't ask management to do this. I suspect they didn't want to know.  Having better information is unnecessary if one has already made their decision. The three "locksteppers" on the board had already made a decision. Their leader always insists upon a fee increase.

Another thing I don't understand is why did the board send these numbers to owners? These numbers indicate a fee increase is unnecessary.  My best guess? We have some arrogant board members, the board is hell bent on making a fee increase, doesn't give a damn about surpluses and has no interest in what the owners think about this.

Case in point: Income though 9/30/2018 is $17,691 greater than the budget; that money is already in the bank. Yet the board ignored it when making their decision for a fee increase. We really don't know what the 12/31/2018 numbers will be, but it is likely income will increase further over the remaining three months.

That $17,691 additional income already in the bank will pay for all but $4,724 of  the identified 2019 cost increases in the O&M budget.

But it gets more interesting. The board "cherry picked" the data and ignored all potential sources of O&M surpluses.   Using only that data which supports one's position is intellectually dishonest. I've spoken to "the locksteppers" about this during previous budget sessions. Which is why I assert they are doing this simply because they can and they are greedy.

How greedy? About $128,012 greedy!

I would be the first to say that good budgeting means one must be cautious when using "projections." They certainly aren't guaranteed. However, large surpluses should not be ignored when making a decision.

What should one do? First, I would only use income above the budget as of 9/30/2018. What that give us is a surplus of only $112,198 at year end.

We've had surpluses most years from 2012 to 2017; some small, some large. I was involved in those budgets and I and the "finance committee" were the chief architect of the most recent budgets, including 2018. None of the current board were on the finance committee. That provides some idea of their capabilities. The president is not quite computer illiterate; these days even three year olds can browse. But using spreadsheets is way beyond the skillset.

What would I do under the circumstances? I'd make a decision based on the data. While it is unlikely there will be a surplus of $112,198 at the end of the fiscal year, it is very likely there will be a surplus of $20,000 to $40,000. To that I'd add the extra income of $17,691. I'd be honest with the owners and use the numbers before I decided to push through an unnecessary fee increase under these circumstances. In fact that's what we did in recent years, which is why fees stabilized after 2011.

The current president was the motive force for those annual 7% fee increases which nearly doubled fees over a decade. She lost an election in 2008 but four years later returned to the board. Ever since she has been stridently insisting upon annual fee increases. The black line prior to 2009 and the blue line represents the trajectory of her boards.  New boards stabilized fees and eliminated the large maintenance backlog her boards had created from 2000-2008. Half of our owners purchased after 2009 and are unaware of this. Many of our owners struggled with the rapidly rising fees for which they had never budgeted. There were quite a few foreclosures, bankruptcies and evictions. Those earlier owners are the ones who paid the fees to run the reserves from $295,000 to more than $1 million in 2009. They were forced out and the new owners have benefitted as the staggering maintenance backlog was eliminated and the fees stabilized.

Is it possible there will be no surplus as of December 31, 2018? Not likely. For one thing, the  $17691 surplus accumulated through September 30 is already in the bank. It is worth looking at what could produce a $0.00 O&M surplus. Several things:

1. Gross errors in the preparation of the 2019 budget.
2. If management or contractors were holding invoices back as of 9/30/2018 that would be a problem. A board should instruct management to get all accounts current prior to determining a budget and it should have used 10/31/2018 data. I can guarantee no such request was made by the board.  Under these circumstances I would have used 10/31 data.
3. The board could authorize management to prepay 2019 expenses. However, if that were done to run the surplus down and prove that it was small, it would probably be fraudulent. 

Here are the numbers: