Management Co printing costs

I'm a new board member/treasurer in a small (75) HOA. I've noticed our printing costs have spiked with no discernible reason. Our yearly reproduction budget is $4500 @ $375 a month. Last month was over $600 and this month is over $1000. So we've blown through a quarter of our budget in two months time. When I questioned the Management, response was "it varies". I realize that, however there are no breakdown of charges....in other words just the page count for reproduction. Is it normal for PM not to include exactly what they are charging us for printing? And while I'm new at this, it seems even $375 a month for printing seems a little high for a community of this size?

"It varies" is not an answer - at the very least, the property manager should be able to say what was printed (newsletters, account statements, letters to individual homeowners, etc.) Is this stuff being printed in-house or through an outside printing company? If it's at an outside company, their costs may have increased and so the property manager passed that onto your association - what he/she should have done is inform the board of the price increase so alternatives could be explored.

Speaking of alternatives, does your association have a website? If not, consider getting one - you could post information there and people can download and print it themselves, if desired. If you print a newsletter, consider asking people for their emails so you can send them that way. Management reports for the board meeting can be fairly hefty - ours had balance sheets, income/expense statement, bank statement, check register, daily cash report, etc. All that stuff can be turned into a PDF and emailed to board members.

Those are just some ways you can look at reducing costs and if your property manager can't or won't help you find a way to do that, consider sending out a RFP for a printing company and take that work way from them. Or consider getting another property manager

Yes, we just mailed out restated guidelines.....9 pages, and nothing else major has gone out. Thanks for the info, it will help when I speak to the other members.

Yes, I found an article about what Ca allows as far as paperless....thank you!