Do you use committees?

My board has been plagued with fighting for years. There are a couple of long-standing board members who are controlling and aggressive and even though they are chairs of the big money committees, they want to be on all the committees which would mean that our entire board would be on the committees they don't already chair. These oldies also have a habit of sneaking around and implementing changes behind our backs without board approval. In our HOA, committees are supposed to do the footwork and research and make recommendations to the board. Recently someone has suggested that we stop having committees and make every area of concern open to all to do what the committee would normally do. Our property manager says that many HOAs don't have committees. Can this work? Does it work for a board to simply say come one and come all to our planning (committee meetings)?

Just based on what you've said, you've got a board problem and not a committee problem. But you may have a committee problem as well. Here's what I know about the issue.

We tried committees and were not successful with them. It was a combination of inexperienced board members not really knowing how to make affective use of a committee plus disinterested owners or owners with an agenda. Our bylaws only require one committee (a nominating committee) which has been similarly useless - and it's unnecessary since our bylaws allow nominations from the floor at the annual meeting.

I think committees can be useful when people have some useful skills (eg. a finance committee), and they understand and accept the limits of their duties and authority. Committees can also serve as a training ground for future board members, which is a good thing. I'm going back onto my board in the not-too-distant future and I'm already planning to try one committee. The director I'll be replacing has valuable skills. They just have a problem dealing with the delays and frustrations of board service - and I suspect being insulated from them may allow them to be an effective committee member.

Keep in mind that committees work at the direction and pleasure of the board. Generally a committee should have at least one board member on it to provide oversight. Unless a particular committee is required by your bylaws, the board is not obligated to have it at all. The board can appoint and remove whomever they like whenever they like. Inability to accept the board's authority, inability to stay in one's lane, and an agenda of some sort are all deal-breakers for me when considering committee members. Ditto a lack of skills. Board members are busy, and dealing with ineffective committees is a waste of time that the board may not have.

So... long story short:

A committee needs a clearly defined business purpose. If you can't describe what it is, then you don't need it.

An ineffective or problem committee is worse than none at all. Disband it temporarily if you believe it has a purpose and you've identified where it went off the rails. Otherwise eliminate it until you have answers to these questions.

If your bylaws require a particular committee that your track record says is not necessary, consider amending your bylaws. As long as the bylaws allow for ad hoc committees, you can always re-create it.

Thanks Cathy, we have clearly defined purposes. Just recently when there was a big dispute about a proposed capital improvement, and a new board member who has the swing vote and some of the lesser committees were funded with money to spend, all of a sudden, the oldies, who had always told the rest of us to stay out of their lane, now want to get in our lane.

Exactly right! Our committees are all board members. Our homeowners don't get involved, partly because things have been set up to not be particularly welcoming to them. The owners don't know that certain directors on our board consistently rule against the individual homeowner. A couple of us have been trying to change that, but it is hard. Like you say, it is very hard to go up against directors who are bull headed and have no shame when they deceive or throw tantrums and curse and scream and threaten and deliberately take things out of context to malign anyone who has a different opinion on any matter.

There are always people who just don't care about enforcing rules, sometimes it is a good thing, sometimes it is not so good, depending on the issue. It is true that people don't like HOA directors. They don't understand that we have to enforce the rules, and that there is only so much money in the budget -- we can't do everything.

HOA boards can do some stupid things though. Years ago, before I was on the board, I got a letter from management telling me to remove a chair that was visible above the fence line. What? I wrote back that I don't own any levitating chairs. One of the X-Files episodes portrayed an HOA board president as being into the occult and being very abusive to the homeowners. He met with a very gruesome death. I can imagine what drove that screenwriter to write that episode.

We wish our homeowners would get involved and participate, but they don't. It would help this problem with the board if people knew what was going on. We have a full-time property manager, but the board has really taken over their functions because they want to control the way everything is handled. There is plenty to be said for directors providing oversight because the management company isn't going to know the issues as well as the directors do, but sometimes I wonder why we pay for property management.

95 Townhome community here. I can barely get 4 Board Members to attend meetings every two months, so committees wouldn't work for us. BTW not criticizing the board, I'm the only retired member, the others have two jobs, commutes, kids at school etc. I appreciate what attention they do give. Sue

The information about the PM saying most HOAs don't have committees struck me as odd and is why I posted this question. It is secondhand information and like a game of telephone, you can never get to the bottom of what was said. I believe that our board has done things for a number of years that discourage owners from attending board meetings, much less trying to work with us. I have read a lot of Davis-Stirling and HOA articles, but our board doesn't listen. They want what they want and turn a deaf ear to anything that gets in their way. We have had directors quit in exasperation, and I understand why they just give up. It's a nasty business.

Yes, I wish we had more homeowners stepping up and wanting to get involved.

As a board member, there are committees I think are very appropriate and ones I would never seat.

Social Committee - this is one the Board should provide an annual budget and let the committee full responsibility to function.

Design Review Committee - this committee should have a current or past board member who has excellent knowledge of the HOA’s design standards. Anytime the committtee approves an improvement in conflict with the design standards, the members are replaced.

Enforcement Committees - these need to be chaired by a board member and only seated if required by the declaration.

Regulation review committees - these need to have a current or previous board member knowledgeable of the declaration - advisory only

Landscape Committee - no board members, no budget. Advisory only

In your bylaws, does it assign noticing responsibility to the Secretary?

We have 140 condo/townhomes in my community. We have 3 Board members total. We also have 3 committees.

One for landscaping to which anyone that wants to make any kind of changes or do any work in the neighborhood has to go through them; one member of the Board is on that.

We have a pool committee to make sure the pool looks nice and is maintained properly and a member of the Board is on that.

Then we have the events committee. There is not a Board member on that committee and they plan neighborhood events such as coffee meetups and the neighborhood night out.

As a property manager, I am happy to have committees take a couple of things off my hands!