Perusing the 2025 Amenity Center Budget

The HOA budget meetings are tomorrow just as the hurricane coasts by our coast. This probably means resident attendance will be down which is exactly what the developer is counting on! Anyway, here I go…

It would be nice if they included a column that showed last year’s budget numbers, but at least they tell us it increased or decreased. We start out with landscape maintenance. The 5 accounts add up to $175,000. That includes $40,000 of landscape replacement. Can’t we buy perennials, something that doesn’t need replacement every year?

Next is a whole bunch of repairs and maintenance accounts including one for the maintenance guy. That went up to $104,500 because he got a raise and there were “other” equipment expenses. Its funny that we’re paying a maintenance guy with our money to maintain a building we don’t own and that we’re going to have to buy from the developer! Why doesn’t the developer pay for this maintenance account? Speaking of maintenance, I brought to somebody’s attention (can’t remember who) the umbrella bases between the chaise lounges around the pool are all rusting. That would be a great job for the maintenance man to do! Grind off0the rust and repaint the bases. But what will happen is we’ll probably wait until the get really bad and we’ll have to buy new ones! So much for maintenance.

Then there’s HVAC maintenance (60K), pressure washing (30K), “General R&M (40K), Camera Maintenance (10K), that’s right $10,000 to maintain security cameras. There’s $100,000 for the pool contract plus another $75,000 for pool furniture and equipment! Budgeted every year, $75,000 for pool furniture. Maybe that answers the question why maintain the umbrella bases because we’ll just but new ones! I remember back in the day when the maintenance man was first hired it was thought that he could take over some of the pool maintenance functions and REDUCE pool expenditures! That was certainly a good talking point!

Our maintenance guy is a good guy. I like him. But what is “maintained”? Wiping off tables and straightening out chairs around the pool is a good thing to do, but that should be handled by the office staff (in my opinion). If a gutter falls down, the gutter guy is called. If there’s problems with the roof, the roof guys are called. The roof still has the top pillars that need to be clad with the white decorative flashing. But there they sit with the ugly gray and black tar used to waterproof them. I don’t know if its ever going to be fixed. So the actual maintenance of the facility is done by other companies.

AND then there’s another maintenance account called “Clubhouse Maintenance and Repairs” for the amount of $150,000. Is that for the amenity center building or the golf course clubhouse? And the description says “Line item remains the same as the high demand for repairs OF AN AGING FACILITY”. I hope they keep that in mind when they tell us what the purchase price is! And don’t forget the proverbial Elevator Maintenance account of $30,000 a year. I think that was 40K when I moved in 3 years ago, so at least its going down! Really, 30K a year to maintain our one and only 2 story elevator. The last meeting I went to I said something about padding the accounts to make our fee go up and the developer guy took offense to that replying “we don’t pad any accounts”. Yeah, right.

So anyway, lots of repairs and maintenance accounts for a lot of money. What is 50K for “Clubhouse Access”? 15K for Athletic Field maintenance. Does that mean cutting the grass? Or is that covered in landscape maintenance? If grass cutting is in the landscape contract, what other expenses are we talking about for $15K? They apparently spend $5,000 a year on maintaining that elaborate basketball court we have! Alright, I’m getting tired of typing the word maintenance, so lets move on to Lifestyle.

Lifestyle accounts are what is spent on us having fun, our lifestyle! The three lifestyle accounts add up to $551,650. Off the top of my head we have pool parties for labor day, 4th of July, Memorial Day and maybe 2 or 3 other pool parties. And at those parties we have to buy the food and drink! For a half a million dollars, you’d think we’d get a free hot dog! Food Truck nights, no money is spent. Wine tasting nights we buy into those. Coffee with new neighbors is a minimal expense. I’d like to see a P&L statement for each of the events that are held at the amenity center. You can bet when we take over that should be instituted. Right now, we know nothing!

Which leads me to the question, what happens when we take over? I personally would like to see the Amenity Center HOA become a voluntary HOA instead of mandatory. If that happens the developer can keep his “aging building” and try to run the amenity center as a business and attract members instead of forcing residents to be members. When you have to attract customers you have to up your customer service game, improve the amenities like heating the pool, not having rusty furniture and staff that doesn’t say “well, I don’t work for the HOA. I worked for the golf course”, etc, etc. Otherwise, if we still have to be members and we have to buy the “aging building” do we staff it with volunteer residents? That would certainly reduce costs!

OK! That’s all for now! And probably quite enough! Hope everybody stays well and gets through the hurricane!

P.S. Whatever happened to the cafe they wanted to open in the amenity center? They wanted us to pay the staff, who were going to be Caloosa Grill employees, with our money and then keep the revenue for Caloosa Grill! I’d like to open a restaurant like that where somebody else picks up the payroll! Nice!