2019 Budget Meeting
It is budgeting season again. Your Board of Directors have been working diligently to review, revise and assemble the 2019 budget. The budget is finished and ready for the community to review at our annual budget meeting. In case you’re wondering what it takes to put the budget together, check out this post from earlier in the year.
Based on the schedule availability of the board members, the community meeting space, our committee members and our property management representative, the budgeting meeting is set for Monday, November 26, 2018 at 6:30pm at the Monroe Public Library’s meeting room.
The Budget is in the Mail
You’ll soon be receiving official communication of this meeting in the mail, along with a copy of the 2019 budget, a proxy form and some additional community information.
For security and privacy purposes, we won’t disclose the specific details about the budget on a public blog post, so refer to the documentation that is coming in the mail.
What’s in our 2019 Budget
Just like last year, landscaping makes up more than half of the community’s expenses. We’ve worked with several community members to form a landscaping committee to help organize events and provide recommendations to the board on how we can manage and hopefully reduce our ongoing landscaping costs. More information about this new committee will be available in the next few days.
New in the 2019 budget is funding allocation for a Reserve Study. A reserve study is required by Washington State law and is performed by a 3rd party auditor, certified by the state. This study provides the community with an analysis of the amount of money we must keep in our reserves account to cover irregular or one-off expenses. These expenses can include repairs and maintenance on our detention ponds, repair or replacement of our community sign, certain storm cleanup activities or other unbudgeted or unexpected expenses. This initial reserve study will give us a baseline of the funds that we should keep in reserve and help drive our budgeting and planning decisions for years to come. Depending on the results, we may or may not need to continue with ongoing reserve studies.
Board Elections
During the budget meeting, we’ll also be holding elections for our open board positions. In the next few days, I’ll post more details about the open positions, their roles and responsibilities, time commitments and the voting process.
Can’t make the meeting?
If you’re unable to attend the meeting, you can have someone else vote on your behalf by submitting a proxy vote form. This form is available here, and allows another community member to cast a vote on your behalf. You can mail, email or fax the form into the Property Manager or the Board of Directors by following the contact information on the form. This form must be in at least a day prior to the meeting. Alternatively, your proxy can bring the signed form to the meeting.
We look forward to seeing everyone next month at the budget meeting.