can a condo board hire a parlimentarian for board meetings

Hi,
Can a board decide to use association funds that are supposed to go to upkeep and maintenance and operations of the association and common areas to hire a parlimentarian to advise at board meetings.. The parliamentarian only advices the president and has no actual authority. He has repeatedly said he serves at the pleasure of the president.

He was brought on last october. and I recall that at the meeting, the president did announce his presence and at the time the board approved using him .

However, after a few months, It began to be a farce. Additionally, this person is charging the association 150 an hour.

This expense was not included in the annual budget.

While I know the board has discretion on how to allocate association funds. Its a stretch to try and categorize a parliamentarian that serves and advices only the president of the board at meetings of the board.

The big issues, The board did not include this expense in the budget presented to the owners for the year 2021. At this point he had already been attending meetings and charging upwards of 600 a meeting.

The owners have no idea they are being charges for this add on service.
I mean. I'm sure the board would like to get a 5 star dinner catered and have all meetings at the four seasons.. they would claim the meal and surroundings facilitate productive meetings. I SAY BS.

Budgets don’t have to have a separate line item for every single individual expense. This could fall under “administrative” expenses or “legal & professional fees” or similar budget categories.

I agree with the others that hiring outside help is a legitimate use of association funds, just like hiring a bookkeeper would be.

I do think it is overkill to have a $150/hr parlimentarian at every board meeting. I could see hiring them once to give guidance to the board, but don't see the value in making it a regular occurrence. Since the president seems to have the agreement of the rest of board, I'm not sure what could be done beyond using it as a campaign issue during the next election.

again,, I'm not asking if someone can make an arguement to support the cost.

I'm asking if the nonprofit corp laws and requirements allow a board to veer from the stated budget outside of unforseen items and emergencies.

The parliamentarian was helpful initially. however. after 3 months, his initial advice and help turned into advising the chair how to use roberts rules to manipulate the agenda and order of business in a way that prevented other agenda items from being objectively and fairly considered.

and mellissa, no i don't stay up at night. I'm preparing for the meeting tonight, and there is a large group of owners that is attending to support my requests. The owners would like to know what is going on and have some kind of schedule for the required restoration of the landscaping.
owners want a centralized work request/order system so that the board can see whether or not owner and resident complaints are being properly addressed.
owners want a qualified , experienced property/office manager in place, currently the board member who was supposed to be temporary has month after month failed to properly address the common area issues and refuses to give any information or access to records.

we basically want transparency regarding the day to day operations of the property, we want issues addressed properly and in a timely manner . We want requests and work orders and maintenance issues to be logged and easily accessible to the board so they can properly confirm and check on whether or not the issues and work order are being completed.

Yes, a board can deviate from the published budget. The annual budget, submitted in advance of the fiscal year, is, with some caveats in Florida, only a guide.

At this point, how come you are not doing a keyword search for "budget" at FS 718 and seeking statutory restrictions on the budget yourself? See
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0700-0799/0718/0718.html

The Florida nonprofit corporation act has nothing on budgets, which is pretty usual nationwide.

thanks augustine,

I actually did attempt to do a search. I was looking in non profit corporate code.

the meeting was tonight and I was trying to get information together for several different issues.

5 hour meeting.. 750 dollars to the parlimentarian.

In my opinion, spending 750 of homeowner money on a yes man to oversee a zoom meeting is a slap in the face when the board is spending nothing on the property. other than regular fixed costs and contractual maintenance.

In my opinion --

-- You have no legal ground on which to stand to object to the parliamentarian.

-- Your sole remedy for this spending you allege to be inappropriate is to get on the board with a like-minded majority. If there is no such like-minded majority, then the message the membership is sending is that they are fine with the spending. Subsequently for you to continue to object to this spending is wasting the board's and others' time and hurts your credibility as a critic of the board.

I agree.