is minimum of $50,000 too much to keep in reserves

The whole purpose of the Reserve Study, is to accumulate reserves in line with the useful life of the items in the study. The projection you presented sounds a tad excessive.
Since the study encompassed wells, pumps, roads, etc, we are assuming that your Treasurer is a qualified engineer!

SandyL - I offer you extreme caution in asking for opinion regarding the appropriate minimum amount you need in your reserve account. You seem to already think the $50,000 is excessive so I'm worried that an opinion concurring with you may sway you in one direction or the other. I will say however that your treasurer performing a reserve study is innapropriate. A reserve study should be performed by professional and independen engineering firm that empirically analyzes the construction of all common elements the association must replace and maintain and then perform a capital reserve replacement analysis. It's one thing for the treasurer to make recommendations after the study has been complete, quite another to perform the study itself. IMHO, big no no. Not because of impropriety, only because there are professional engineers who do this for a living and are experts in their field of analysis.

I will analyze your treasurer's math however. $9,000 per year equals $28.85 per unit owner(s) per month. In 8 years that will net $72,000 plus interest.

How much do you currently have in your reserve account now? That's the big question because in 8 years you will need to spend $112,000 (according to your treasurer). So to have a minimum reserve balance of $50,000 in 8 years you'll need to set aside $20,250.00 per year rather than $9,000 per year. Assumming of course you don't have anything currently in the reserve account.

Your treasurer's funding methodology needs to be based upon a table that shows the cost of replacement per line item of each common element, the remaining estimated life-span, the year of original construction, and the unit of measure for each common element. That's just the beginning of one aspect of the analysis.

Good luck!!

Sandy, what happens if the well runs dry in 2 years or there is a sinkhole in the road. Then you have special assessments for those problems. If the Reserve is calculated by a Reserve Specialist, he can give you advise on the structural and architectural aspects.

If you cannot get a reserve specialist because the project may be to small, call in vendors that do the type of work your reserves would encompass. Get their opinions and costs of the projects.