There has been some talk about the possibility of reducing our annual membership dues, and at first it seemed like a good idea. However, after I was elected Treasurer at our last meeting, I started doing a little financial forecasting just to see if we could reduce our dues. What I found out was that we have a much bigger problem.

Basically it all boils down to income and expenses...our expenses will rise a little bit every year, but our income will remain constant. Eventually our expenses will be more than our dues can handle. Knowing this, I came up with a very basic forecast model based on our last 3 years of income and expenses, to try and figure out how long we have until our annual income no longer supports our annual expenses.

What I came up with will probably not make me a very popular Treasurer, but clearly shows that we cannot lower our annual dues. Click here to view a pdf of the original Excel spreadsheet forecast model document.

In order for our Association to remain in the black, the Board has come up with a few ideas that we hope will help our financial situation.

• We have been given the green light by our Attorney and Accountant to invest our unused cash. More details regarding our investments will follow once this has been completed.
• We will be going over our expenses, and seeking more competitive bids for our required services, to try and reduce our outflow.
• We will be cracking down harder on late, and unpaid dues households, in an attempt to reduce the number of defaults.

As our financial situation changes, I will update the forecast model and post this information.

We welcome any ideas or suggestions.