Presidents’ Report – July 2016

One question that the Board receives quite often is, how does the Association select vendors with whom to contract for work in our community?

When the Board sees a need to hire or replace a contractor, the General Manager is asked to research companies that do the necessary work and come up with at least three bids (if there are three companies that do the work). The GM then presents the Board with three proposals along with references on the companies that bid.

In Executive Session, the Board discusses the scope of the work, each company’s references, and the bid amounts to clarify who each Board member believes would be the best contractor for the project. In open session, the Board then votes on which company to use. Under our HOA By-laws the Board can only obligate the community to a one-year agreement, although they can renew each year, but there must always be an “out clause” in every contract.

Every major contract is sent out for bid every three years. This category usually includes the contracts for our management firm, our attorney, our landscape firm, our security firm, our golf management, and food and beverage.

The previous Board negotiated different termination dates on our major contracts so that the Board and staff have time to review each contract carefully. Before this change, the Board had to look at two or three contracts at one time under short time constraints. Now we have time to get the bids in, make a careful review, and have a full discussion before decisions are made.

When money is spent to keep our community in the beautiful condition it is, two Board members must review and approve every invoice before payment. The two Board members rotate each week so that different eyes look at all the expenses and we make sure that our money, as well as yours, is being spent efficiently. It takes your Board at least one to two hours, depending on the number of invoices, to review and approve them each week – time we all believe is well spent to make sure we are wisely spending our $217 each month.

We have started working on our budget for 2017 and, beginning in September, the Finance Advisory Committee will have some preliminary numbers for the Board to start discussing. These budget meetings are open to residents to attend and hear what the Board is discussing. They are not exciting, as you will hear the Board go line by line to make sure we understand what the item is for and how we arrived at that number. Items will be removed, added, and changed as we work through this process. Look on the website or in the View for when these sessions are scheduled, we would love to see you there.

Joan