Assessment Limitations?

This won't be helpful to your immediate problem.

Things cost what they cost. So governing docs that impose artificial limits on spending (either explicitly or by homeowner vote) is a recipe for poorly managed communities. These artificial limits actually increase costs over time (via deferred maintenance, cheap low=cost fixes that don't really fix anything, and inadequate reserves for future repair and replacement of common elements). At some point the community will pay the price for living in financial la-la land. The price will involve special assessments, loans (which are special assessments with interest and fees tacked on), or letting the property deteriorate.

If you happen to be on the board in one of those communities, your task will be educating the membership about finances, and it will straight up be a tough sell. People nearly always put their immediate self-interest ahead of their future self-interest, especially when money is involved. You're up against human nature, and our species hasn't yet figured out an effective response to that.

My community's governing docs do not set a limit. We are allowed to create realistic budgets. My state's laws also require us to have periodic reserve studies and to fund our reserves accordingly. I would not have bought property in a community that does not allow for these two things. Even so, we've managed to dig ourselves into a bit of financial hole that we now have to dig our way back out of. The membership is getting straight talk about our finances whether they like it or not. :-) Some weren't happy over our most recent assessment increase, but we made it clear that we couldn't pay our bills otherwise and that this would have immediate consequences.

(Tariffs are not helping matters. At all.)

Something that may be helpful is having a finance committee where owners can dig into the financials and maybe suggest areas for cost savings. It gives them ownership of the budget process if they also have to make the numbers work. And it counters the conspiracy theorists who think that the board is just making up the numbers. Such a committee is also a useful training ground for future board members.

We're in the process of changing the narrative in my community. There is a widespread mistaken belief that keeping assessments down will keep costs down. It seems like it ought to work, doesn't it? And it can in new communities with fewer maintenance needs and fewer unexpected surprises. But as a community ages, it stops working and starts to increase costs rather than lower them. Unfortunately the membership and the boards have been convinced by then that low assessments are a good thing, and they really don't want to face the new reality until it bites them. It's tough to be the board that needs to rain on their parade.

Our Covenants & Res10%trictions allow the HOA to raise dues without vote by 10% of the annual dues...i.e., for easy math, if $100 is your annual dues, the BOD can raise the dues to $110. More than that requires a 2/3 vote of residents. But that is for the total yearly amount, not separate for each amenity.