Committee Charters & Splitting Hairs

[I know Committee charters came up recently in another thread. I’m starting a new thread in an attempt to avoid being stained by the patina of ill-will in the other thread]

Committee charters have recently become a discussion point for my Board. Our neighborhood does not appear to have ever employed a committee charter, and there is no mention of charters in our governing documents. We currently have *no* committees{1} - but recently someone has stepped up to chair a “Parks Committee”. I think it’s a great idea, and also I’d like to take advantage of its formation to begin a policy where *all* committees have a charter{2}.

So - stealing from the bazillion sample committee charters on the web, and using a list of “Duties” received directly from the person who is volunteering to be chair - I wrote one up. It’s 1 page and very lightweight. I have to ask y’all to trust me when I say contains no malicious fine print or any “gotchas”. It’s not intended as any kind of legal document - it’s more like back when I was in corporate, we frequently relied upon various “Documents Of Understanding” (DOUs) or “Statements Of Work” (SOWs) that were useful for specifying roles and missions and responsibilities.

If it makes any difference, the new committee would like a budget of ~$250 for pizza and drinks for the volunteers who come out on “Park Cleanup Day”.

Anyhow - one of the new Board members seems to have some difficulty with this concept. They may have some underlying ‘secret’ issue, but primarily they seem to have a problem with how committee charters aren’t mentioned in our governing docs.

Any Wisdom on how to address this? I don’t think it will be a huge problem, but I’m not certain how to concisely and properly put forth the notion that yes, the Board can institute a policy of committee charters even though I can’t find anything in our docs that comes right out and says this. (And I’ll concede that I might be totally wrong, too)

Thank you,

Bill

{1} The Social Committee chair resigned about a year ago and no-one (of the 10 listed committee members) has stepped up to take their place - I may be wrong but I consider it Not A Committee anymore. I’ve mentioned that I’ve been acting as “Pool Committee Chair” this summer but (for better or worse) there’s absolutely nothing official about it.

{2} There’s some history here, as the previous Social Committee (aka the “Christian Holiday Children’s Party Committee”) was chaired by the wife of a Board member from a ‘former administration’ and ran with absolutely *no* oversight and had access to a $5000 yearly budget. There was never any misbehavior, but still: that’s just unforgivably sloppy.

I advise saying something like this to this Director (call him Director Bythebook):

"Director Bythebook, I appreciate your reminding us all of the importance of operating within the four corners of the governing documents and state statutes. I hear you that the word 'charter' does not appear in the governing documents. But the Texas nonprofit corporation statute (B.O. 22) does speak to the creation of committees by the board. Sections BO 22.218 and BO 22.219 give the board the legal right to create certain committees "by board resolution."

For every committee, and to be consistent with state statutes, I suggest that the board provide a "charter" (per the commonly used meaning of the word "charter") within a board resolution.

Of course, the next topics might be (1) whether certain committees are authorized under the bylaws (in Texas, they do not have to be); and (2) whether the HOA may give the committee money from HOA funds, to spend in a manner consistent with the board resolution (and charter within).