I read the following at the 3/28 Board Meeting.

Let’s talk about the wonton spending this board seems set on following without the requisite planning and foreclosures to property owners, despite advice to the contrary from the treasurer and finance committee.

Recent example is the plus 150K spent for a backhoe, ostensibly as part of the Lake Dredging project which, as yet, has not procured a single approved permit.  Where is the Return-on-Investment study for this purchase, what professionals contributed to its creation and, if it exists, why has it not been made public?

Must be in the same file as the paving machine project!  Originally motioned as a 70K investment that would allow the POA to repair its roads, whose costs have since morphed to over 130K due to additional hardware required.  This added hardware had to be known at the time the original project was motioned for without It, that beautiful new paver would be nothing more than yard art!  So, two separate motions over several months, while the capability has shrunk to basically cart paths.  Let’s not miss the facts; the cash no longer in our accounts earning interest, the warranty clock having begun, and all the while not one yard of asphalt has been laid.  Another project that lacks any detail of capital and labor costs and how it intends to recoup these expenditures.  Is this incompetence or malfeasance?

The emergency entrance to the River.  Original project was to create a golf cart crossing from the Lake with cool yellow flashing lights to warn high speed traffic on Sledge and an RFID gate for reentry to the Lake.  Cost was estimated at 17K.  The board said they could swap properties with First Choice to get one that lined up with a POA lot on the lake side.  The board failed to inform of the costs associated with that transaction and have since traded two properties to cover the timber clearing and the legal costs associated with the deed transfers.  As a crossing the board got push back by residents of the River and the disclosure that it would serve less than 6% of POA membership.  So, it was rebranded as an Emergency Entrance, 500 yards from the current entrance and on the same road.  In the recent Reporter the board president proudly stated that the new backhoe will be used to create, not an emergency entrance as it currently being marketed, but wait, a golf cart crossing!!   And whatever this project is, there are still costs associated that have not been disclosed, probably not even calculated, like preparation of the lot for motor vehicles.  But hope holds eternal, maybe we get to finally use the virgin asphalt equipment!!

There is a simple rule to business management, revenue drives spending.  So, when a budget is created based on expected revenues, but those revenues are not realized, over 25% dues gap, then spending must be curtailed.  Two types of spending, fixed costs, that which must be spent to sustain current operations, anything failing that litmus test is discretionary, that which we would like but could live without.  Based on today’s agenda this board does not know the difference!