Am I allowed to vent on this site?

Tuesday of this week the Treasurer and myself finished preparing a proposed budget which I emailed to the other Board members Tuesday evening. We had a Board meeting Thursday. I made the statement that we should have another meeting just to approve the budget, but the President said "do we need antoher meeting, can't we do it by email? (We are in NE) I don't even think the President tried to study the proposed budget. Since another Board member also wanted another meeting, I reminded the President that two Board members can call a special meeting so a special meeting was scheduled.

I would like a President that is mored conerned about our budget, but I know that I don't want to be President. Too many hassles.

I am wondering how many other Board members have issues with other Board members not caring much about a budget.

Just a little history so that you may understan my frustration.

When I first became a Board member I read our documents and realized we were to have a budget. I worked on a budget by meyself and it was passed with no discussion. I know a budget is a guideline, but according to our documents we have to explain anything that is over 5% of the budgeted amount. I personally watch our budget carefully and report how we are doing especially near the end of the year. Yes, I know our documents are ancient and we have had a lawyer working on this for us.

ALso when I first became a member, the Vice President at the time mentioned giving gas money to people so that former residents could be visited. The person who was going to provide transportation volunteered to do this if other people wanted to visit former residents. ALso according to that Vice President (acting President) there was not time to vote on the budget.

I looked at her and said, you must be looking at different figures that I am looking at. It gave me the impression that she wanted to use fees for her personal charitable dontations.

I would have no problem for providing gas money to visit former residents if the members approved this expense, but I don't think one or two people should make that decision. But I sincerely doubt we would get enough yes votes to us the fees in this manner.

BonnieG - Do you have the budget ratified? It should be in your Declarations or By-Laws or the State Planned Community Act. The Board does the budget then calls a membership meeting to vote on the budget. This would help with some of your concerns.

I believe Bonnie is an association with many elderly folks that might not drive and being elderly, their views of many things might be....shall we say...."slanted" some like maybe not in touch with reality at all times.

I could be wrong, so Mea Culpa in advance.

We are in NE The rules are a little different here. I have read no where in our documents or State law that the members have to ratify a budget. With the age of our owners, I think it would be next to impossible to ratify a working budget by a vote of the members. One of our owners actually poked the person in charge of building maintenance and said we like low fees. Low fees are good but they don't pay the bills. We haven't put money into a reserve account to my knowledge since I moved in over 4 years ago. We have cds but have not added anything. My monthly fee is only $166.58. If I didn't have a mortgage I would feel like I was living on easy street especially since we don't have to plug the washers and dryers with quarters.