Employees or Contract labor

We have one employee handeling janitorial and landscaping,Forty hours, well paid and with no supervision. He elso has his own business handeling odd jobs and landscaping for homeowners billing them seperately, after hours and on weekends. Another basic salaried person was hired for 40 hours. Meanwhile meter reading is required and was a part of the job description until recently. Now the well paid employee has taken over that job, requiring 8 to 10 hours and performing it on time other than the 40 hour week, for $375 per month.The board ignores any attempt to change over to contract labor
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Don, I suggest not having any employees for the HOA, but rather hiring them as independent contractors.

Let me add one thing to Tim's list (which is very good by the way). Workers Compensation. This is different than health benefits.

For an employee, the association have provide workers compensation insurance just like any other business.

On the other hand contractors are generally required to provide it for themselves.

I can't overstate the importance of figuring out who is responsible for workers comp here particularly when a person is doing the kind of jobs that might lead to a trip to the ER for seemingly minor things like cuts, bee stings, etc. When the nurse asks how it happened as soon as the person says "I was working on..." they're going to start filling out workers comp paperwork. You'll really be up the creek when the state finds out that a person was injured doing work for you and the worker's comp laws haven't been followed.

Another word of caution with respect to contractors and workers comp. You cannot assume that a contractor has workers comp and then claim ignorance if it comes to be found out they did not. It could then fall back on the association to pay for it plus whatever penalties for non-compliance. All contractors should be required to furnish a copy of their registration certificate at the time they give you their W-9. Trust but verify.

Our documents had a stipulation that the association could not hire any contractor that did not have workers compensation paid for by himself (i.e. not the association) and requiring a copy of the certificate be filed in the association records. For our long-term contractors like the landscapers we'd require them to give us an updated copy whenever they renewed their policy, usually once a year.

Is the HOA responsible for posting a bond that will protect it from criminal wrongdoing on the part of its bookkeeper, or is that a responsibility of the OM to secure such a bond?