BOD Committee involving non BOD's

Hi Linda:

The committees answer to the BOD. The BOD determines what decisions the committee can make and money they can spend, as the BOD is the ultimate responsible party for the HOA. Committees can help relieve the BOD of some everyday issues and stress, so they should take advantage of the opportunity if others want to volunteer their time and efforts.

It is a very good idea to involve other homeowners because this gives them a feeling of participating in the community and how the HOA operates. They then would be perfect candidates for being elected to open BOD positions and have better knowledge regarding the position. Also, involving other homeowners helps build HOA team spirit and makes a closer community with usually less petty issues encountered.

I fully agree with Susan & Janet!
Place your request for board approval of Committees on an agenda accompanied by one on more sample committee charters, which spell out their responsibilities and limits. Your property mgr. may have access to charters. Also I think I've seen samples in the CAI (Community Assoc. Inst.) Toolkit for Board Members. It costs $ to join, but many managers are members.

Authority varies, e.g., here, the Social Committee has an annual budget; it doesn't need board approval to spend within it. Our Finance Committee has no budget and recommends investments to the board for reserve funds. Every month at board meetings, it makes recommendations (usually) to accept the financial reports. Its main task is to craft our annual budget with our prop. mgr. and make recs to the board accordingly. All committee reports should be in writing.

2. To help convince them, make sure directors clearly understand that committees and their chairs serve at the pleasure of the board. Committees should each rec a chair for board approval and write monthly reports of their activities and any recs to the board.

Three of our committees--Architectural, Landscape and Social-- have no board members on them. In these cases, a director serves as board liaison. S/he attends committee meetings, but has no vote on committee biz. The main function is to make sure the Committee stays within its limited role and to offer advice from the board's perspective, e.g., chances of the board approving some sort of expenditure from the operating budget or reserves. Btw, our Architectural Committee conducts almost all of its business electronically.

As you can see, Linda, you'll need to do some homework, but committees really are an excellent source of fine ideas and future directors. I cannot imagine serving on our 7-member board here (211 high rise units) without the work of our committee members.