Defeating the Budget

State law supersedes anything that a community's governing docs say unless the state law specifically defers to language in the governing docs. So if your state law has eliminated homeowner's ability to vote down budgets without any exceptions, then there are no steps that homeowners can take to get around this, and you're setting yourselves up for legal trouble if you try.

FWIW, I refer to provisions allowing homeowners to vote down budgets or assessment increases as "licenses to commit financial suicide", with things like the Surfside condo collapse as the worst case end result.

What you should do is dig into your community's financials to understand where the money is being spent. If you think the current board isn't making wise decisions, or you think you can do a better job, you need to get elected to the board.

Cathy's reply is concise yet thorough and looks absolutely on target to me.

No, you have another option - vote in another board or recall them. The first is self explanatory - when annual meeting and board elections come around, you should have candidates for however many positions are up for re-election. Those candidates will have to make their case to the community and encourage everyone to come out and vote. Hopefully, your candidates win - and yes, you may have to step up and run for one of those slots.

For a recall, there will be more drama and it'll take longer, but it can work. First check your documents to see if it addresses the subject. If you don't see any instructions on how to recall board members, there should be something on calling special homeowner meetings. Usually, you have to have a certain percentage of homeowners sign a petition to present to the board, who should then call the meeting. Your petition will state why the meeting is being requested, so if you do have such a meeting, you'll have to make your case (again) as to why this board should be tossed. You should also have homeowners ready to step up and take over.

However, you get a new board, the next issue will be the budget - and this is where the uncomfortable conversations start. You say this is a vacation community and from what I've read on this website, they're even worse than your garden variety HOA when it comes to homeowner apathy. IT appears as long as the buildings remain standing and you can swim, bike, hike, or whatever, no one thinks very much about what it takes to keep the community running. It's not cheap and prices DO go up (people often forget about inflation as well).

Underfunded communities (remember Surfside?) could be why this law was enacted, but for some reason, I think you may have misinterpreted something - as ridiculous as state legislatures can be, I would think that's really ballsy to mandate homeowners can't vote down an HOA budget (then again, looking at all these voter suppression laws littering the landscape, I could be wrong). Anyway, the language your read might have been been referring to the reserve fund or something else - go back and read the entire law again. It may be something written before or after whatever clause you read will make it easier to understand.

Back to the current board - if enough people object, that may be enough for them to straighten up and begin providing more details on the budget. You should be reviewing the monthly income/expense statements for the last two or three years to get an idea of which line items have increased faster than others, and then find out why. It may be the board needs to return to basics like getting several bids for expensive work. Or rereadin the reserve study to see how closely they've been funding it. If you don't know what a reserve study is, there are several old conversations on this website where you can get the basics and that may help you understand what's going in in your community. If it's been over 5 years since a reserve study has been done, homeowners should demand the board get one so everyone will understand what they may expect down the road and how to prepare for it.

Jeff
It is quite common that association members do not get to vote to approve a yearly budget. It is more common that they get to vote to not accept the new budget as presented. It is also common for that amount to be at least 50% of all owners and often more.

In my association the BOD presents the budget for the upcoming year including any increase in yearly assessments (dues). In order to not accept this budget would require owners (15%) to call for a Special Meeting with the sole purpose of not accepting the proposed budget. It takes 51% OF ALL MEMBERS voting to not accept the budget. If this were to happen, we would have to operate under the present budget with an automatic 5% dues increase.

I am not talking about Special Assessments. They are a different animal.