Hey James I'm just curious. I've only been here for a couple of years but it seems your current board have accomplished the most. Almost a complete rehab for the entire complex within 2 years. Wow! I'm wondering what previous board did with all our money??? I'm not an accountant but I've studied accounting. Let's say y'all have so far used about $25,000 for each of the 8 building rehabs. That's $200,000 in 2 years. My question is, what the hell did previous board did with all of our money for the past 10 years, or 20 years? Your board is an example we could save $1,000,000 in 10 years with no rehab, nothing going on (like previous boards) other than operating costs. Now as SPW Treasurer, would you care to explain to the best of your ability where the previous board(s) did with all that money???

By Anna

finance

I don't know what happened with all that money that was handled by the previous boards, but i can only assume they did the worst possible thing. This board as got the ball rolling, and its making this place look nice and slick. its nice to know that people care and come to this site and ask good question. I hope James can give us some good insight.

By john

SPW Financials

Hi all,

That's one of the best questions I've heard so far from a SPW resident. I will try my best to answer as fully as possible since I realize this is an important issue for SPW residents to understand. I may have to do it in several pages so please bear with me.

Well, in order for us to save up money for the rehabs we had to cut corners here and there. When we came on board we started to fire the previous management and hired a cheaper one. We fired an expensive handyman who was overcharging us and started to do-it-ourselves. I change pole lights & garage lights with the help of some ex-board members). Would you believe the previous handyman charged us $65 a trip even for one light bulb replacement?Casey fix a lot of stuffs around here just like a handyman. Sam takes meeting minutes to save us $75 each month. John provides his expert consultation for free for the rehabs. We cut down on attorney actions who was charging us arms & legs. We shopped for cheaper insurance company and take competitive biddings for repair & maintenance processes. In summary, we cut down on our operating costs substantially (see continue on next post)

By James

SPW Financials (continue)

That's not to say the previous boards did not have any money left to put into the reserve account after all the sharks had chomped on our operating funds. They should have and somehow they wasted it all. For example, the previous board vice president - Ernest Crawford, charged us $4000 per month for his so-called expert consultation. That's a $48K per year job for a looking around job doing nothing else. John is doing the exact same thing right now free of charge.
Then they wasted $36,000 on the mailbox ramp and so-called ''park'' in front of the mailbox. That's a $10K job max. They even tried to borrow $2 millions and if succeeded, they would be sure to waste it all, or find a way to put it into their pockets and get rich, while putting all of us in the hole and we would have to use all of our reserve fund to pay back for the next 20 years.

Anna is very close with her $200K in 2 years saving analysis. Yes, with the current expenditures, we could put into our reserve fund more or less $100K per year without any major repairs or rehabs. By summer of next year we would complete the rehab and could start to save, that is if roofs & foundation are in good shape. It's very important that we have at least $500K in our reserve for our peace of mind. Natural and made-made disasters do happen. A fire like the one at unit #108 could wipe out a whole building leaving many people without a place to live. Insurance covers parts of the disasters but not all. Unforeseen disasters do happen and could run down our reserve fund in a hurry. I urge all to read a story here: http://www.neighborhoodlink.com/article/Association/Case_For_Reserves/

At the current time we are discussing reducing maintenance fees but I would favor a small reduction for now in order to build up our reserve fund first.

As for the question why we could not save anything for the past 10 years or 20 years, I cannot answer without going through the meeting minutes and expense records in our history file. I have to acknowledge that previous boards should have if not half of the $100K per year then a quarter of it ($25,000/yr). We could have $300K in our reserve fund in 12 year and at least $500K in 20 years.

I only knew of the board's actions just before our current board (with Cecilia as president). I only became involved when hearing they were trying to borrow 2M. Before that I didn't even care and put my total trust in the previous board(s). I'm urging all to consider carefully when voting for the next board. Cecilia & Ernest should not be allowed to come back. Please ask around first before give anyone your ballot when they come knocking at your door. They could give all the reasons to discredit the current board. They want to look and sound as professional as they can be (who wouldn't for a $48K a year job?). Kermit, John, Sam, Casey have knowledge of who is good or bad around here. Talk to them and give them your ballot even if you don't care who runs SPW. They could represent you to vote for the most qualified runner. Please urge your landlord to turn in an empty ballot to Randall, they would give it to the current board.

Finally, it's nice to see someone paying attention to what we do. After all we represent y'all to manage y'all money. I have never seen a more honest and trustworthy such as this board and I'm proud to be a part of it. I won't be here for long as I'm looking for a house right now. I would try my best to make sound decisions before leaving and I trust that y'all would make sound decision when choosing the next board in 2008, or the year after and so on. Please be mindful that the crooks would always look for an opportunity to come back. I bet they miss that money!
Thanks Anna for your question and for an opportunity for me to answer.

By James