Budget Approval FAIL during Open Meeting?

Developing a budget isn't the sole responsibility of the treasurer, although he or she may do more of the numbers crunching because the treasurer is supposed to be more familiar with them.

All of you knew this was a new treasurer- what did you do to make sure he/she was comfortable with the duties? Is there a former treasurer around who could assist? The property manager could also help- did anyone ask for assistance? How did this person come to be treasurer anyway- did y'all say "we need a new treasurer-anyone interested?" This person said "yeah sure, I'll do it and the rest of you said ok?

If you're that concerned about the budget, have a talk with the treasurer and see how things are going, and ask if he/she needs help. Make sure they get it and then the ENTIRE board can review the budget and ask questions. If you need to delay the vote until the next meeting to get this straight, do it.

I was board treasurer and we started working on next year in August because we'd begin by reviewing regular contractors to see if we were happy with the work, needed to renegotiate a contract or find another. Budget preparation took priority at our meetings through November when we'd vote because our documents require homeowners receive the new budget and the assessment by Dec. 1.

It may be your board simply leaves this to one person to figure out so they can blame him or her if things go sideways. Just like rule enforcement at your pool - do you need to be reminded of how that went this year? Either everyone works together on this or you all take the fall - because you should.

All of that said, budgets are guides at best because you don't know for certain what will happen next year, but they're critical because you know what needs to be funded and you get a good idea of what things will cost and what you should monitor. This is everyone's money, not just yours or the treasurer and board members have a duty to plan and manage the association's assets. Having one helps prevent waste and indecision, so you might be overthinking this a bit.

Focus on that pre meeting to endure everything's covered and go from there, Be prepared to show homeowners the numbers, especially if there will be an increase in assessments. Focus on the positive thing the association did this year and what you're doing to control costs. Be honest and you should be OK. Good luck.

And next year consider getting some training for all the board members on working together and best practices.

Bill

Unless there have been major changes the typical budget is the same as last year. Also a budget is a best guess versus being cast in concrete.

Thank you, everyone. You've given me a bit of perspective. It helps.

Kerry - everything about my HOA is so massively dysfunctional that I despair of writing about it, and I suspect y'all are tired of hearing about it.

The one thing I'll tell you is that our neighborhood's PMC was acquired by another PMC and so no, we can't just take last year's budget and adjust for inflation.

And - 3 weeks later - DBLady is still after my ass.

Bill

With MarkM: of course your new PMC has the budget from '23. Yes, y'all go over it line item by line item and make adjustments based on your expenditures so far for this year. Sometimes, you final financials for 2022 might be good guide. If your PMC does not have it, who does???

When is your approved budget due to Owners per Texas statute?

Look, if you need a 3rd budget meeting so be it. It's far better if all directors get some grasp of your budget. I remember one long-ago year, when many directors here were new and I wasn't yet interested in the budget, that the accounting VP from our mgt. company guided the Board through the work of preparing the budget. I was very much "in" from then on. Owners were invited, but only a couple came.

I told you our Board voted for a final approval the other night. Something came up, though, and I'm pretty sure they will need 3rd open budget meeting. WE also have a director returning to the Board on this Wed., our Annual Meeting. He's a shoo-in to be elected as he was great until a stroke felled his 14 months ago & he resigned. He's been in lotsa therapy and is at helm in. wheelchair and does have the use of one hand for typing. He's speech is bit good.

The main thing is that he had become very skilled with understanding our complex budget and reserves. So I'm sure he'll add something to the current verse ion of the boar'd approved budget. I relate this story to show that budgets ARE important and the more that skilled folks are involved, the better.