Subject: Budgets, dues, and office staff: Part Four
Hello Queen’s Landing,
In Parts One and Two of this series, we covered briefly how the dues might raise by $2 or $11 per month depending on what we change in the front office.
Another proposal INSTEAD includes raising the dues by $9 (including the “keep up with inflation” $2) to put extra money in the Reserves.
So what is the “Reserves”?
Well, this is (by law) basically the money set aside for a) an unplanned catastrophe like a tornado destroying one of our buildings and b) planned, long-term projects like asphalt resurfacing, replacing doors and windows, etc. A company specializing in Reserves study comes in to the community with their engineers and looks at everything and tells you roughly what you should be setting asides for these things. We last had this done in 2019.
Interesting sidenote here is that the State of Maryland has just enacted a law that says Condo associations HAVE to have a Reserve Study done and then HAVE to start putting money into Reserves per that study. You are going to start hearing stories that other Condo communities weren’t funding their Reserves enough (or at all) and that their dues are going WAY up.
That will not be a problem here as we already contribute to Reserves through our dues. However just as we have stayed ahead of the game in funding our Reserves AT ALL, it is wise to at least consider whether we should fund more. It’s a conservative measure for planning ahead and to avoid as best as possible some unknown future catastrophe that could result in an assessment for the community.
So that’s the third option in which dues might be raised.
Any questions so far? Email [email protected] and he will try to get it answered.