Association Can't Agree on Budget Extension

— With time running out on its abbreviated budget, the Property Owners Association board couldn’t agree on an extension at a meeting Thursday night.

The budget will be a topic at the next “Talk to the Board” forum at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at Riordan Hall. A package addressing association financial woes will be presented then, said Ed Morgan, board chairman. The board has considered asking association members to approve an assessment in recent months.

In December, when the board typically passes a budget for the coming year, board members were still discussing a 10-year baseline review that projected finances for the coming decade. The review showed expenses would exceed income as early as 2014.

The board chose to pass only the first quarter of the 2013 budget and directed General Manager Tommy Bailey to institute certain cost-cutting measures although the proposed budget was balanced.

Before the budget vote Thursday night, the board addressed some of those measures. A hiring freeze was lifted to allow Bailey to begin hiring seasonal workers. That process usually begins in February, he told the board. Seasonal workers do maintenance on the golf courses, run a summer camp and act as lifeguards at the association pools.

The association lost several full-time employees since December, including the superintendent and assistant superintendent of the Metfield Golf Complex. Bailey was directed to fill the full-time positions as well.

The only capitol project in the 2013 budget, a new software program for golf, membership services and recreation, was removed. The proposed system cost more than $370,000, including training and installation.

“We can live without the software,” said Mike Erixon, a board member.

Some members of the eight-person board were ready to approve the remaining 2013 budget, but Erixon, Randall Gnant and Charlie Teal voted against it and as chairman Morgan didn’t vote. Without a majority of five members, the vote to approve the budget failed. The board is without a ninth member with the death of George DeGroot last summer.

There is one more board meeting scheduled during the first quarter so the board will again consider the budget March 21.

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