Thursday, January 23, 2020

Financial Report

2019 year end....How did we do?

For you that like to bash the blog and accuse me of being a liar and posting false information, these are numbers that I did not make up. Except for those of you here, most members will see nothing about our spending in 2019, until they get an abbreviated version at the Annual Meeting in July.  Shortly,  the association will spend thousands of dollars on the annual audit.  The figures I state here will have slight changes because of bills and payments coming in after the first of this year as well as some audit corrections. But you will get a close idea here on how the association did. We should not experience a million dollar error like North Beach has.  Our book keeper, Heidi Larson, does an outstanding job. She pays the bills and see's that they are recorded in the appropriate accounts. The real problem are those that appropriate and those that spend. 

Disclaimer: 
My experience consists of preparing and following budgets for over 15 years with 15 employees and budgets over one million dollars. So, I know a little about spending and budgets. The Board that I worked for, would have fired me immediately if I presented a budget and spending plan like Surfside does every year. 

I have every budget and financial reports for at least three years. This first report presented here will only be a summary and not detailed with a breakdown of all costs. If there is interest, I will present more detailed topic postings.   Some, I will do, because I think they will provide important information that is of interest to the members. "liars figure, figures don't"


Revenues:

Member payments of dues and assessments:
Budget  1,646,475.00   End of year received 1,611,425.84   remaining to be collected  35,049.16
97.9% have paid.  This is a good figure and about average. Some of this will be collected as past due in 2020 and go into the Misc. income account. 

Misc. Revenues:
0 budget   collected 163,946.70
This is that dirty little secret that puts us in the black, even when with exceeded spending in the budget and did not have full member payments. This covers up over spending. Just a few years ago, before Clancy, there was an attempt to have a budgeted Misc. income of around 60,000 dollars. Then for some reason it was changed to a 0 budgeted amount. This is not proper accounting.

Bottom line with combined revenues:
Budget  1,646,475.00   Collected  1,775,472.54     Income above budget  128,997.54

Expenses:

Business Office
budget  255,759.00  spent 282,838.88   over budget  27,079.88
No red flags here. Most over budget items are minor.

Administration:
budget 206,540.00  spent  201,083.74
No red flags here.  5,000.00 under budget
Of interest:
legal fees  71,973.98
insurance  65,635.51

Water Dept.:
budget  640,393.00  spent  625,821.72
water line replacement
budget  74,360.00  spent  99,355.70
More water line under capital expenditures
91,000.00  spent  100,007.60 
Items of interest
gravel  27,724.59 had budgeted 12,000.00 

Common Property
budget  96,987.00  spent  98,709.18

Patrol:
budget  73,577.00  spent  71,864.31

Compactor:
budget  113,277.00  spent  122,950.41

RV storage site:
budget 13,500.00  spent 8,689.72
This is where it gets interesting...
RV storage lot income. 
power site rent  20,900.10
non power site rent  6,571.09
So, where did the income go that exceeded expenses?  
It went into the Misc. income fund that has no budget for income. 

Note:
There are misc. expense items like activities, but they are of no significance. 
So there you have it. All in all, other than the pipe replacement, the association stayed within budget. That by no means says that they should have spent what they did, budget or not. Now you know a little more than most.  I may very well have hit some wrong buttons on figures, but with my failing eye sight, did the best I could.  This little bit of information took about three hours. When I can't do this any longer, you can get your information from the Weakender and the "official" web site.   



13 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
JoAnne said...

Thanks for the easier to follow financial information George. Yes we will certainly rely on the official site and weekender for current information 🤣. No minutes posted since October and no architectural committee minutes during the time they approved the proposed lighting covenant.

Anonymous said...

Surfside Board Mottos;
Let a little $&%$ happen now and then.
Keep the members starved of information and the board fat and happy to do as they will.

Anonymous said...

1044 - sad but true! Distract and obfuscate. Sound familiar?

Anonymous said...

Joanne- you're starting to see the blatant illegalities that I have been observing for over two and a half years. Communication and transparency are basic tenets of a not-for-profit entity. We have none here.

Anonymous said...

The board meets once a month due to state regulations. The office staff runs our day to day operations. Heidi writes a check and credits Cash and debits the offsetting Expense account. Not exactly rocket science. I don't see how anyone could effectively run/oversee any organization with the restrictions placed on them.

Anonymous said...

What are you saying 9:37 AM?

Anonymous said...

I'm 9:37 (1:33). It's obvious what I'm saying. The Board oversees things and does not/should not run SHOA. That's always been the mantra no matter when you arrived here. You can't do it effectively in a three hour meeting.

Anonymous said...

They, the board, places the restrictions on themselves.
Who should run SHOA?
Who's mantra?

Anonymous said...

To 12:42 PM. You are wrong. The restrictions are placed on ALL boards of ALL hoa's by state regulations. Open meetings, quorums, etc. rule
(should be it rue?) the day. Volunteers do not have the time or experience to run the day to day operations nor should they.

Anonymous said...

Blah, blah, blah, nonsense, nonsense, nonsense.

You think open meetings and quorums are wrong, wow.

I see you prefer anything goes and dictatorship.

You're wrong. You say they are restricted by state regulations. I submitted a letter and evidence of this board violating state and local regulations and our own regulations. I wrote the letters to the WA State Attorney General and the WA Secretary of State. The state did nothing and told me it is a civil matter. They told me to hire an attorney and referred me to some state referral hotline.

Cora said...

Would you post a copy of what you wrote?

Cora said...

The government won't do anything about the HOA violating their own covenants, but they should take action about the HOA violating City, County, State or Federal Laws.