Budget vs Expenditure

Greetings. I am new on a HOA. Our by-laws specify that The property and business of the Corp shall be managed by the BOD...The powers of the Board of Directors shall specifically include....(b) To use and expend the fees and assessments collected...

I read the ByLaws as stating that the BOD must vote on expenditures. I am being told that as we have an approved budget, this is the BOD approval en masse to spend funds up to the amount budgeted, and in our case another 10%.

From a business or accounting standpoint, a "budget" is not a spending document or authorization, but am told that for a HOA it is.

I am told this is based on Fl State Law.

If our BOD did not have such a history of "hiding the ball" in their spending, I might take the statement from them at face value.

Does anyone have a statute or case law that is on point?

Douglas

Thanks for the feedback. I tend to agree that utility bills, lawn maintenance, in our case employee payroll and such of a fixed or fairly fixed budget could cause some headaches. Though we do meet 1 x a month.

But then we have budget line for "Beautification". What does that mean? Anything we think that will beautify the place! Feeling is that since we "budgeted" 30k to this, we can just do what we want, until we get to 33k in spending (10% cap for over run in By-Laws), all without a public vote.

What I am trying to discern is if I am being to heavy handed, or if the way we do it, and perhaps you do it, is just the easy way and not the proper way. Keep in mind this is all (in my mind) based on a recent history of "executive BOD meetings" (not posted, no minutes, no public) where hundreds of thousands of dollars have been contracted out.

For better or worse we have to get on track of doing it the right way, not the easy way. I just want to make sure I am not swinging the pendulum to far. (legally, not as far as this would/could be a pain)

That is why I am hoping someone has case law or something other than 720 (which does not address this issue) for me.

Thanks All

On something as vague as "beautification", the board IMO should have a general plan of how the 30k is going to be spent.

Then again, it should depend on how large a budget you have.
If your total budget is $100k, that $33k is a big deal.
If your total budget is $2M, not such a big deal.