Informal Meeting Minutes Southwind Community Association 4th Quarter Board Meeting

Informal Meeting Minutes

Southwind Community Association 4th Quarter Board Meeting

Date: 27 October 2015

Martha Reid Elementary School

Board members present:

John Jurik

Hoyt Ferguson

Tony Bloodworth

Ron Erickson

Classic Property Management present: Gary Klepperich

Quarterly Reports

Committees.

Kim Dennis from the Activities committee discussed that the Southwind Fall Garage Sale was successful. She also mentioned upcoming Southwind community events to include the Halloween Hayride, Cookie Exchange, Holiday Lighting Contest, and Christmas Caroling. Julie Newlin from the Yard of the Month committee discussed that in 2016 Yard of the Month will be conducted from June to October.

President.

Southwind Meadows – At the 3rd Quarter Board meeting in August, the Board reported successfully negotiating a cost sharing agreement with Southwind Meadows. The developer had planned for a final Planning and Zoning department meeting in mid-September which was not anticipated to require any changes in the development, followed by the developer purchasing the land from the owners in early October. A six month engineering plan effort would follow and upon approval by the City, a six month construction effort to install roads, utilities, fix our front pond, and install the Southwind Meadows pool and pond would occur. The start of actual building of houses would happen around a year from now.

However, at the P&Z meeting in September, two issue came up. There was a disagreement as to the required lot sizes, with some concern that 5000 sq. ft. lots was not sufficient., This was resolved in the developers favor. Also, a study determined that the retention pond Southwind Meadows will be constructing on the north side of Southwind Dr. was not large enough to handle water runoff. The retention pond will be enlarged and result in a reduction of six lots available for development. The developer is currently redrawing the plans with an anticipated P&Z meeting set for November. It is estimated there will be a two month slip in the development schedule.

Management.

Gary Klepperich discussed the need to perform repairs on the perimeter wall along west Ragland Rd. and north Collins Rd. The base of some of the brick panels have deteriorated due to soil shifting and will require repair. Gary also discussed the pool is closed and is being scheduled for winterization. The Board is looking into installing photocells to trigger parking lot and pool lights versus the existing manual timers which are not very reliable. Also the Board is looking into whether to install halogen or LED lights for the east fountain on Collins Pond to replace a temporary fix. Upon installation, the fountain will be centralized in the pond to its original position.

New Business.

Annual Meeting. John Jurik mentioned that homeowners should have received nomination forms for the three Board positions that will be opening up in December for a two year term. The importance of filling these positions was stressed. John also discussed the importance of attending the December 8th annual meeting where resident vote on the new Board members. If you cannot attend, be sure to send in your proxy card to Classic Property Management so that your vote is registered. A quorum of 63 attendees or proxy cards are required to conduct the meeting.

2016 Budget.

John Jurik reviewed the history of assessments in Southwind. Assessments started in 2005 with builder Kimball Hill setting assessments at $360/year. Kimball Hill went bankrupt in 2007, and Southwind was under bankruptcy board control until 2010. Centex purchased the remaining lots in 2010 and along with Ashton Woods, built homes until 2014. From 2005 through 2012 there were no assessment increases, resulting in severe loss of buying power due to the effects of inflation and opening phases 2 and 3 of the community. Assessments were increased 10% in 2013. In 2014 the current Board decided not raise assessments in order to study the budget process and how money was spent to maintain the community. In 2015, working with the newly chosen Classic property management, a budget process was established and assessments were increased by 10%.

A description of the budget process was then provided. A generic approach such as assessing each line item a 3% inflation increase is not used. Instead, all 70 expense line items are evaluated individually and compared to 2014 and 2015 actual expenditures to understand the history of maintaining a particular item. Based on past expenditures and any anticipated needs in 2016, a new budget amount is set. Only after all expenses are budgeted does the Board look at assessments. There is a requirement to run a balanced budget, so assessments are adjusted to equal the requirement maintenance for the community.

A copy of the itemized budget was distributed to attendees. Looking at the assessment for 2016 first, there will be a $10 per household increase in assessments. This also equates to a 2% increase or approximately $6300 additional income for maintenance.

A brief description of each section of expense items was provided. The main line items affecting the budget were pointed out. Bad Debt write-off was reduced from $9300 in 2015 to $2400 in 2016 resulting in substantial savings. This is due to ongoing efforts by the Board and Classic Property Management to reduce overall uncollected assessments.

Insurance costs for the community increase by $2500. This is due to having the first reevaluation of the community assets since 2005 by the insurance company Davis-Dyer-Max. Assets now covers all assets in phase 2 and phase 3 of the community. Following this adjustment, we competitively bid the insurance policy with 2 other companies and decided to stay with Davis-Dyer-max due to a favorable claims process versus the other bidders.

The estimate for water usage was increased from $14,000 in 2015 to $20,000 in 2016. This is due to the installation of the new irrigation system along Ragland, Collins, and Collins Pond.

The annual contribution to the reserve fund increased by $3,500 from 2015 to 2016. The assessment increase in 2015 was capped at 10% although it was estimated to be larger. To balance the budget, the contribution to the reserve fund was reduced in 2015. This was not deemed an issue since the reserve fund was overfunded at the time. Since then, we have used the excess monies in the reserve fund to install the Collins irrigation. Therefore, it was imperative that we make a full contribution to the reserve fund in 2016. Contributions required for each year are spelled out in the reserve study that was performed in 2013.

After the above explanation, the Board voted to approve the 2016 budget as presented