Jean Totten as One Day at a Time Another item that may appear back on the agenda for the "formal" Board meeting on Thursday, November 17th, is the same one brought forward in October by the Finance and Budget Committee - Director McAdam – I move to approve the 2023 budget submission made by RCSC Management with the exception of the recommendation to transfer $4.5 Million from carryforward to the Capital Reserve. Yes, it was defeated. However, apparently one director who cast a "no" ballot has had a change of heart (?) and wants to change his vote. What I was most disturbed about regarding this recommendation is that the raising of the yearly assessment fee was not mentioned in the recommendation. This is clearly not the Transparency that we members have asked for. Members have the right to know when a raise in their fees is going to happen. And, members have the right to know what the almost 3/4ths million dollars accrued by this $29 bump in fees is going to be spent on. What can we do? Let's provide more data. Write emails to the Director Mike Ege, with a CC to the rest of the Board, thanking him for joining with the minority members of the Board to vote against the recommendation. If this item does appear on the agenda, sign up to speak on it. *Be polite. *Express your thanks to him for voting for the members. *If you have more to say, just remember you only have 3 minutes. Members Matter!! Thank you.
Another interesting topic that most often will put readers/members to sleep; though it shouldn't. Running and financing a community the size of Sun City should be everyone's business. It's not and here's why? The argument goes like this, we are the cheapest (least expensive) age restricted community in the nation. We haven't had an increase since 2017 or 2018. That's a good thing, but the reason why we haven't is this; we didn't need the money. One could easily argue, we still don't. That's getting ahead of ourselves. Because the argument of being the cheapest, is only partially true. Every single home buyer after 2003, and any owners before 2003 that lost a spouse and moved (to typically a smaller home), are paying the $496 for one rec card. I know, it's called a lot assessment, but the net is their yearly cost is $496 while a married couple's cost in $248. I like to point that out because one of the guys on the finance and budget committee (where this increase allegedly originated, except it was really at the request of the general manager), loves to flaunt that he's grandfathered and doesn't eat the big increase. Nothing wrong with rubbing a little salt in those single folks subsidizing couples eh Dave? Anyway, back to the question of the $29 increase. The GM wants us (the membership) to pay more because he wants more money in the reserve account. He freely admits he sleeps better at night when he has large reserves. I know the argument, what happens if the Sun Dial roof collapses again? See, here's the problem, the last time it did, we didn't have the money to fix it, now we do. On top of that, we have full replacement cost insurance. We are buying the best so we don't have that problem. His argument was this; "you know how insurance companies are, they don't like to pay off like they should." No, i don't know that. Perhaps if that is how they are, we are with the wrong carrier. Seems to me we have members on the insurance committee and that would be one of the first things they would look at. So we are clear, we have 5.6 million dollars in our reserve account (emergency fund that came out of the Sun Dial roof collapse), and he wants it to go to 10 million by adding 4.5 million from the carry forward money. By the way, the carry forward is between 11 and 12 million dollars which is money that has been paid by the members and saved since 2016. I would argue (and have often), some or all of that money should have been spent on the membership, but what the hell do i know? We know from the general manager's arguments, there's a bunch of stuff that needs to get done. The real question is; WHY THE HELL HAVEN'T WE BEEN DOING IT ALL ALONG? It's not like we didn't have the money; WE KNOW WE DID. It's such a circular argument; we need the money because we need to spend it; yet while having the money, we didn't spend it. That is so illogical. The problem is the board didn't tell/force the management team to spend it. They simply trusted them to do the right things for the members. How's that working out for us now? Anyway, it's a conundrum. We need more money so we can save more money in case we need it. Personally, i'm fine with whatever increases they NEED, i'm not with what they WANT when there is no NEED.
