Hawaiian Shores -- Operations Costs Coming Soon!

WATCHDOG © 2011

Effective Saturday, October 8, 2012, the harsh reality of truth was settled by the Board of Directors in a unanimous vote to set the upcoming fiscal budgets and the consequential assessments required to support the budget. The GOOD NEWS is the assessments are NO MORE than the last Board set. The BAD NEWS: They are NO LESS! The directors voted onto the Board [6 directors] this year who campaigned on cutting costs and the many who cast a vote for reduced costs -- and who naturally ASSUMED they would be paying less in the process  --may be amazed at those fabulous savings! AND just to be clear, the clanging of discordant noises from the '$12 a month for water' bunch have given way to THE SAME FEE as has been established for 3 years in a row! Their representative Directors have done them proud.

Indulge the Watchdog as we take you back to October 2010 during the first discussion of the Budget negotiations with the previous Board. Let's identify a common thread that weaves from that board to this one. The Chair for the Finance Committee this year has acted responsibly during budget discussions. He understood the process having participated in it for two years previously. He tried to come to an accord with everyone's input and put together the best budget going forward. The Watchdog appreciates that dedication despite the fact that he has had to assert himself to act as Chair. However, this is the same person who came to the first budget discussion in 2010 as a director with a budget of his own. His budget called for a 17% decrease reduction to the annual assessment! That would put the assessment down around $250.

To be clear: This year's budget has shaved off variable employee costs by ~25%. They have also scaled down costs over all by ~$28,000.00. When you add the amounts together that are expected savings: Variable Employee Costs: $67,520.00 and Operational Costs: 28,800.00 the grand total savings: ~$97k. Where is this savings reflected in your annual assessment? Truthfully the budget will allow for ~$62,000.00 surplus and this is a good thing. Why? Because the attempt at austerity reflected in this year's budget may not be the reality on the other side of the fiscal year. Interestingly, though some directors have tried to scale down the water user fee from its current $50 per month to something they believe better reflects the amount actually spent on the water system to deliver the water, it turns out the fee that was set 3 years ago and has been covering the costs of operations was exactly what the current president's own investigation revealed! If you add in the $3.00 infrastructure fee also being added to the amount of the delivery costs it is $50. Imagine that! The Director of Operations and Management, the Finance Committees and Boards of 2009 + 2010 actually had it right and the current president's figures supported the fee. So what of the uninformed clamor of the masses over the alleged outrageous fee for water consumers now? When they find out that all the campaign rhetoric was based on ignorance of the data and on the 'rumors' of those who 'once upon a time in this land long long ago' had a dated concept of what the costs should be. The reality of business costs are always a shock when you haven't been in the trenches doing the planning and running the business.

We'll see if the same SHOUT about the assessments and water fee materializes this year! To quote one of the finance committee members who was busily trying to find costs only associated with the water consumer 'the days of $17 a month for all you can use water are long gone!' Here's hoping her neighbor who has been calling for a return to $12 a month sees her point of view. Reality bites!

In the meantime, you now have the amounts to budget for going forward into the next fiscal year which begins November 1, 2011.