$32 More a Month?

As someone who has never missed a meeting since owners took over the St. Charles Place HOA, I confess: I hate HOA meetings. Really. I hate most all meetings, actually. They usually take time away from doing either something productive, or something fun.

So I get it when you say you have better things to do September 23 at 7 p.m. than go to the monthly HOA meeting, especially with the annual meeting coming in October that I will harass you to attend.

But you need to come to this one. This one is the one in which the board hashes out the budget for 2015. The budget meeting itself in October is a 15-minute rubber stamp for the budget that gets decided this month.  The preliminary budget from our property manager proposes a $32 hike in monthly HOA fees.

Thirty-two dollars more. Every month.

Don’t like that idea? Neither do I. But the biggest expenses we have to operate the community (insurance, electricity, water), won’t go anywhere. We managed to shave off a little money in the insurance rate for next year, but not so much to offset rises in other areas, including our reserves, to which our reserve study last year revealed that we had not contributed enough. Not by a drastic amount, but enough that we have to play catch up.

So the board needs your ideas. Can we do something more cost effectively? Is there an alternative to our current landscaping that we could more easily (and cheaply) maintain? Is there something more we can do to maintain the integrity of our buildings so that they better resist wear-and-tear that requires fixing?

Pull out the copy of the budget you got from last year. The categories have not changed. If you don’t have yours, email the board (board@stcharlesplace.us) for a copy. Look for things that the board might have overlooked, or things it can explore, to save money and reduce the hit to our wallets a $32 fee hike would mean every month.

September 23 at 7 p.m. at River of Life Christian Center on Krycul Ave. That’s the time and place to have your say.