Pool Use Service Fee

Our HOA has a small/med size community pool and it's use has traditionally been included as part of the ammenity package. There are roughly 300 townhomes and 47 single family homes and the quarter assesments pay for use of the pool. I'm wondering if anyone else out there has tried charging a small service fee for the use of the pool. There doesn't seem to be anything in the docs that would prevent the Board from inplementing this. The pool service contract, supplies, lifeguards, and other incidentals make up a huge percentage of our budgent. With all the skyrocketing expenses, we've got to try to keep the assessment hikes down and considering the fact that less than 10% of the folks actually use the pool, it just seems like the logical thing to do. Has anyone else tried this? Any other thoughts?

Mike IMO this would not be proper if you need more money then assessments should be raised across the board. What do your docs. say about equal access to the common areas and how assessments are used?

Mike:

Glen is right, I don't think this would be right as well. If it is part of the amenity package for the neighborhood you can't charge extra, IMO. I would either increase assessments across the board or look at ways to cut costs.

Hi Mike,

I think you got good advice from all the other posters in regards to the fees. Trying to set up an extra "user fee" on top of the dues is unweidly and may not be in compliance with the CC&Rs.

The other side of the coin are your operating expenses. Take a look at every expense in the budget for the pool and see if they can reduced. Start with the five largest expenses and see if they can be reduced first. If you can save 10% on each of those five items, it may reduce the total operating expense by 15-20%.

Then if you can save a little on the smaller expenses, it might push your savings up to or even over 20% of the budget.

I've been the head of our Recreation Center Committee for almost ten years and I work with our Treasurer each year on the budget. We are always looking for ways to save money anywhere we can to keep the operating costs as low as possible. It can be done, it just takes some time and effort.

Good luck.

Thanks for all the responses. These are all good ideas, but this seems to be a case of "been there, seen it, heard it, done it." Re - Expenses, All contracts and contract proposals are reviewed by an ad hoc budget commitee, so we're always reviewing these and looking for savings. Because of spiraling energy costs, our main vendors are passing on large increases and at the same time, we've raised assessments by some very, very large percentages over the last two years. Most residents understand why the assessments were increased so much over the last 2-3 years and we're seeing it elsewhere (all over)... Real Estate taxes, insurance, fuel, groceries. It's no secret that everything is spriraling in cost. The biggest pieces of the budget are trash, pool, and groundskeeping. Those are the big ticket items. We've even noticed that since the pool is such a large expense, that some communities are opting to close the pool for 2-3 years so that they can get caught up on reserves. Yes, our pool budget is very large since we're in an area that requires a certain number of lifeguards on duty (depending on how many people are in the pool), so it's not like so of these pools in the southern resorts where there are no lifeguards. When so few people use the pool, it just seems like an unfair drain on resources.

I was just trying to feel out everyone in order to see is anyone else had seen where additional service fees (IE - Like the pool ID passes that we issue)were passed on for common area elements and I guess the answer is no.