Prorerty Managers salary

Grace,
I have fought this practice for twenty years. We have a new Board in April. This information is included in your financials. It is still shadowed to some extent. Maybe next year it will be clear and up front. I can't tell you how much I am against this practice, not that it matters. I am just bewildered as to why any board would not welcome the chance to put it out front. It is a line item. Also the managers job description should be out front and visible. I consider it just another attempt by a Board to not want to tell the members something as opposed to wanting to relay information to the owners. It is bad practice,it is insidious, it breeds suspicion and it is unnecessary. It is a covenant between the Board and the manager and has no place in an HOA, referring to hiding the information. Why it is not common practice to include the managers job description with the documents conveyed to new owners is beyond me.

Grace,
I guess we have to be a little more definitive about who we are referring to.
If you financials list expenses under Management company, then it looks like, since you have two associations, one financial report, you don't know who is getting charged for what. Now, if in this Company they have assigned to you a Project manager (single individual) you should know how much he is getting paid.

I can't help but get the impression the Board(s) is not running the show. Certainly the Management company can elect to charge anyone anything they want as long as it is not specified in their contract. Certainly, your Board should demand to know where the money is being spent unless they have agreed by contract to something else (God knows)

But cutting through the crap, this whole thing should be board controlled and your board should be able to answer these contract questions. If they can't, I suggest you demand another contract be signed. If they hesitate and claim they have some long term contract, I would contact a legal eagle. (knowledgable).

There is no doubt their is a great drive in this country for more Transparancy. There is muich to do about HOAs running secret control over the members. I have no real idea if you are caught in this kind of mess, but, bottom line, members have rights, and one of them is the right to know how their money is being spent. If your board don't object and if you had to pay this $70 for nine pages, and they don't get your money back, they are suspect in my mind.

But, just my opinion.

Grace,
And my guess is the more you all dig the more you will find. I would imagine this stuff all goes back for a number of years and has just resulted in the tail waging the dog. Happens all the time and is like trying to move mountains to get it changed. But, worth the effort, and it sounds as if you have some support so organize and let all your complaints come from your group instead of you directly, Organize openly, use web sites, newsletters and above all Town Hall meetings. Do not hide anything and have nothing to hide.

Karl,

As I've stated in another of Grace's threads, the board needs to be made to understand that it's their job to be running the assn as "the buck stops there", so to speak. Any wrong doings committed by the PM are on the shoulders of the BOD. If they can't be made to understand that, then they need to be recalled. This is a problem that occurs in many assn's. I attended an HOA training academy and was surprised to hear a number of board members state their surprise when told the PM was not in charge, they are. I don't understand why some board members think it's the other way around. Since when does an employee ever have more clout than their boss???