Budget

The treasurer should be meeting with all of you to explain how she arrived at her figures - if it still doesn't make sense, have her review the proposed budget with the association accountant.

She may be making some assumptions she shoukd, or really doesn't know how HOA budgets are supposed to work. If it's the latter, the rest of you may need to look into getting her some training. The CAI website has educational materials on a variety of HOA subjects ranging from rule enforcement to budgeting. In fact, there could be a number of subjects all of you might benefit from.

Also, if she's new to the position, would there be a former treasurer on or off the board you could ask to mentor her? If she really doesn't know what she's doing and isn't interested in learning, the rest of you may need to consider appointing a replacement.

All of that said, I attended a CAI seminar years ago on budgeting, along with our president, where the present or said if a community was having a serious with delinquencies (as we were), the board may want to consider basing the budget on the number of homes that were actually paying, do our numbers would be realistic. It didn't give the delinquent homeowners a pass, but rather than base it on money we sdidn't have anyway, we could do the best with what was available. The money we did collect was seen more of a cushion. Of course, this also meant tough decisions on the level of services provided.

That may be what this treasurer is thinking of, but if your accounts receivables are $50k, you have bigger problems and need to take a closer look at what's going on and how your collection procedures are. Yes this would also include an evaluation of the collection attorney-maybe he/she needs to be tougher or you might have to make a change.