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May 19, 2008
Time to Fire Up the Committees and Get People Involved
Two issues are showing up in the news - the first being the foreclosure crisis and its impact on association finances; and the second is the continuing intervention of state legislatures with respect to energy conservation issues. I believe that both issues will touch just about every association in the country before too long - so this is a reminder that is usually better to be proactive, and put together well-formed plans, rather than be reactive and try to put something together on the fly.
These issues are also in the news enough that residents are already aware of them, but they may not be aware of how they are going to impact them through the association. If they are paying their assessments, they may assume everyone else is and you really don't want to spring a surprise on them with a large increase in the regular assessment, or with a special assessment, to make up for others not paying.
So, why not try and form two committees (if you don't already have them). One to deal with the revenue issues and one the energy issues.
The committee looking at assessments and potential financial problems could review the current collection policy to make sure that it is up-to-date and being implemented effectively. If you've got collection issues, they can review possible solutions, including using a third-party collection firm, an attorney or even doing it themselves, but only after checking the documents and state and federal laws. The committee could work with the board to help identify potential cost-saving areas in the budget, that may not have been looked at real closely before. A few extra eyes and hands can really help with this. The side benefit of using a committee to help with this is it increases the number of owners who have a good awareness of the issues and the efforts to deal with them.
A number of states have already passed laws (and more are proposing) prohibiting associations from banning clothes lines or solar panels. Other forms of energy conservation will not be far behind. Forming an energy conservation committee can help you identify areas where the assocaition can conserve energy (and water) as well as investigate ways that individual owners can also conserve energy. In addition to clothes lines and solar panels, they can look at both common area and owner xeriscaping (natural environment), changing lights to flourescent or other energy-saving type, changing out sprinkling systems to automated, more efficient ones, recycling water, etc.
These are two areas where the board cold use some help, that owners need to know what's going on; and people need to communicate - and that's what committee's are for. Start now, because waiting to see what happens almost never works or helps.
Posted by joewest at May 19, 2008 6:47 PM
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