Property Manager shared condo budget to vendors

I am a new member of the recently elected board of directors for a condo building in Atlanta. Yesterday, we learned our property manager, who works for a well know property management company,shared the condo association's budget with two of our vendors. We were all livid, as this has cause an uproar with the office manager and maintenance crew. Has anyone experienced anything similar and what was the outcome. Thanks

ChadC, I suggest getting sealed bids. Sending bids to the BOD is a good idea but sometimes the problem can be within the Board. We put Contractors on a Preferred List after we find out they do good work for a reasonable cost. Board members can open or view the opening of bids and then we compile and tabulate them for presentation at a Board meeting. If you cannot trust your management company on bids, can you trust them with other important matters?

BTW that Manager really gets around - married to two vendors and has a significant other

RogerB

Sorry let me clarify, the old board somehow got us into this situation where the PM is married to one person, who owns a Landscape and Pool Company, which has caused us to have one person running the show. We have the hardest time trying to get separation between the 3 companies. And yes for this year just to not have the place fall apart I have decided to not challenge the contracts and yes call it what you will, I will have to babysit this situation for this year. We have formed a very good board and all Board members are on the same page as we have a problem. We are all working very hard to resolve the issue and have more control put back into the hands of the BOD.

KellyW:
If you have a "good" list, maybe the message will get across that those not on that list are not! That's the way our HOA handled it; problem was the MC made the decisions about vendors, and in fact, even dealt with homeowners and approved the vendor for work done on homes by providing the vendor (there would be fax numbers from the MC to the contractor printed on top of form) with an ARC/ACC application, telling the vendor it was okay to go ahead with work AND THEN the ARC/ACC committee would receive the ap later; in most cases, the work was already completed by the time the ap reached the committee--when this was brought up and certain of the board complained, they were accused of interfering with the MC's job--there was nothing the committee could do then and nothing they can do now--by the time you know about it, it's too late to handle it.
EdR

I guess that I am just a little tougher on ethics than most, this property manager should be history to your association or complex. Disclosuer of this type and breaking of the trust is an ethics question, which she apparently has very little of.

If you look at RogerB's ad after each of his comments, it states professional advisor. Propery managment is a profession. I do not see the professionalism in this property managers act of improper disclosuer to the vendors on this condo project.

Big warning to all from 14 year veteran of BOD. Never ever hire a management company(MC) that does it all. We made a mistake 7 boards ago of hireing a company that the husband was the mc the wife was the office manager, the only daughter was accounts payable/recieveable and the son in law did the lawns. What a nightmare evry time you called to tell them about a problem you were in there opinion attacking a family member. Never ever do that it is a horror from ****.

Ref the problem with shareing the budget that is simple if a bid comes in that matches the budget or is super close I throw it in the garbadge. I ask our PM who has used a certain vendor and call the hoa if they say did a good job then they are allowed to bid get at least 2 bids on everything period. Sure it slows things down but remeber a sad bod is a bod who depends on the pm to do everything. If you get crooked pm's its usually cause the board is too lazy to do their own homework. This is work being a bod member understand or stay away from it.I personally wish the city fathers would have quaterly or monthly meetings with the bod's to iron out problems on a city wide basis instead of fighting with us constantly over doing what they are paid to do. Cities put up with **** that hoas would never put up with.
Thats my 2 cents worth on this issue me I say fir the pm for giving out this info. But remember if you know what she is doing and you let her know then you know exactly what you got there is no hidden agenda especially if you confront her and place it in the minutes.