Finance & Legal minutes: 2011-07-25

Agenda:

Here are the minutes from our F&L mtg. July 25:

*F&L Minutes*

*July 25, 2011*

* *

*Present:* Becky, Mary, Aaron, Elph (from Grounds, to make an in-person
request re: cracks in the asphalt)



*Agenda: *

1) Discussion of request from Grounds to fill cracks this summer.

2) Discussion of request from Buildings to paint porches this summer.

Minutes:

*Minutes:*

1) * Grounds and cracks in asphalt:* Elph came to first part of meeting
and requested that Grounds be allowed to spend $3,250 - money scheduled to
be spent next year on asphalt maintenance, to be spent this year instead,
for the purpose of filling large cracks.

- money is there: budgeted for 2013 and every 4 years thereafter

- less then $5K expense

- CH carpet increase was approved with no major concerns raised

- General agreement from cmty to spend money keep infrastructure in
good shape

This is the kind of thing we think the community will approve F&L
handling (and a perfect example of why we wrote the proposal we will be
bringing forth shortly at community mtg).

For more background, here is an email from Rod (Grounds) on July 17:

The proposed changes actually don't change much, long term. Let's see if I
can show this. * indicates crack sealing and sealcoating.



Current Proposed

2011 *

2012

2013 *

2014

2015

2016 *

2017 *

2018

2019

2020

2011 * *

...and then we're back on Paul's schedule. So we're proposing doing it now
and getting it right, then adding an extra year to the next two cycles to
allow us to "catch up" to Paul's cycle. (And we can always revisit the
schedule in future revisions.)



So the difference as of 2021 is zero in our proposed schedule. If it turns
out that we need crack sealing alone in the intervening years, we can talk
about that independently, maybe as part of operating or some kind of
short-term reserve.



2) *Painting: * In the Reserve Study, we have planned for the "flats"
(horizontal portions) of porches to be painted this year, and the rest of
the porches to be included in painting of all the white trim, as well as the
non-brown siding next summer. It seems to make a lot more sense to do the
entire porches at one time. Should we make this change to allow for that?

We considered this question again tonight in our meeting and decided to
approve spending next year's porch-painting money this year. The Reserve
Fund's purpose is to provide needed financial resources to enable the
community to pay for the necessary maintenance of the community's
infrastructure in a timely manner. The porches are in bad shape, waiting
another year may cause damage. Also, there is bare wood where mold is
already growing in many cases, and the movement of next year's money to this
year does not cause the community financial harm.



For more background, here is an email from Aaron to Finance and Buildings,
July 18.



Re: Painting, I'll start by saying that I think we made a couple

mistakes, and also handled the painting in a somewhat confusing

way in the updated Reserve Study. I apologize for that. That said, I don't
think the mistakes/lack of clarity harm us financially, and I think,
ultimately, we have the resources planned for in the Reserve Fund to pay for
the painting of the porches that needs to happen this summer.



I'm including the quotes from Tribble that we used to build a schedule of
painting for the Reserve Fund. It looks like the $88K for next year
includes costs for:

- Green and Red painting

- All white trim painting (including porches)

- porches flats painting



Then we also budgeted a single line item for the flat portions of the
porches (the ~$4,700 line for this year), but then erroneously added that
cost again into the projected costs for next year.



In any case, what we want to do, as I understand it, is to paint ALL of the
porches this summer. Then, next year, when we paint the green, red and
other trim portions, we wouldn't need to re-do the porches (thus saving
money that we had projected to spend next summer, for an even trade; also,
because the 2012 line item seems to also include the $4,700 number again, we
would actually come out ahead). In the future, we can put the porches back
on schedule with the red and green portions, OR we can leave the porches to
happen slightly more frequently, and do the trim and red and green sections
together slightly less often. In either long-term case, the short term
situation is that we should be able to do porches this summer. That will
cost more than the $4,700, but we have money to paint the porches budgeted
into next summer's schedule, so the bottom line is that the money is there.
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