Year to year Board decisions/votes

We elect a Board of Directors annually. Depending on how the homeowners vote, some of the Directors may stay for another term and some may not be re-elected. Each Director serves for a one year term, however, there are no term limits (you can run for the Board every single year).

Here is where I am confused. One year, the Board will discuss and vote for a Board policy or procedure. For example, the Board voted to not put certain information on the HOA's website for the general public. Then the next year, the new Board 1) does not address or acknowledge the previous Board decision and 2) puts this information on the website so that it is available to the general public and 3) has no discussion as to whether this change to a previous Board's decision should be done.

The same thing seems to happen with other policies or procedures that a previous Board will adopt. It is as if the community never adopted the procedure and frequently treated as a "new" discussion or issue that does not apply to the new Board members because they were not on the Board at the time a decision was made. If anything, this line of thinking seems to hinder progress.

Needless to say, this creates confusion for the homeowners since these discussions and votes are recorded in the minutes.

This situation has nothing to do with bylaws or statutes but is simply a "best practices" issue as to how business is conducted? If a Board makes a decision as to how to conduct business on behalf of the association, does that decision "stick" until it is discussed and voted on again? Or is it a "blank slate" every time the Board membership changes?

Ann,

When a state legislature passes a law, that law remains in effect until some future legislature either formally repeals or amends it, right?

So it should be with organizations, such as homeowners associations. When a board makes a decision, through a formal vote and that decision is recorded in the minutes, then that decision should remain in effect until a future board, by means of a formal vote, chooses either to rescind the previous action or to amend it. They cannot simply choose to ignore it.

Roberts Rules, the most often recognized source for parliamentary procedure, specifically states (11th ed., p. 111) that "unless an adopted main motion specifies a time for the termination of its effect, it continues in force until it is rescinded."

Our Board members serve two-year terms. This provided some continuity in leadership and administrative rules.
It also provides two year's experience with those rules/decisions, which is helpful for future evaluation.

Bruce has a good point, but to be clear, that only applies to things that are formal recorded decisions of the board. There is a lot of room for interpretation of Bylaws, and often those opinions aren't turned into recorded decisions.

For example, a former President was absolutely adamant that his interpretation of our bylaws pertaining to the construction of outbuildings was correct. I disagreed then and do now. He received support for his opinion through the HOA's attorney (the same attorney who once asked me on an issue "How would you like it to be interpreted?"). Great, he thinks that way, he has some support from the attorney. Was it ever recorded by vote that the particular section of the Bylaws shall be interpreted as such? Nope. Therefore, everything that happened previously was purely discussion without vote and the current board can interpret otherwise.

Of course, the current board could overturn that interpretation if it had come to a formal vote.

Other than minutes, do any of you maintain a separate list/documentation of such decisions?
It's so easy for things to become lost as the BoD changes membership over the years

Thank you ALL because everything everyone has contributed makes sense and would promote order and continuity. Our Association was turned over from the developer around 5 years ago. The Association is now at the point that there is a volume of meeting minutes. Unfortunately, in 5 years we have had 16-20 individuals on the Board. So if I have this right, if the Board votes on a guideline/procedure, then the subsequent Boards are supposed to either follow it or vote to amend or rescind it (and it helps if they reference the date it was enacted or voted on).

Thanks all!

The board should maintain a record of the rules currently in effect. The law in some states requires that these rules are part of the record keeping of the association, and available for inspection by owners. This is in addition to minutes. It would be valuable to have the rules and decisions in one document, reviewed and amended from time to time.