The board confirmed April 23, 7pm as the date and time for the annual HOA meeting at the Westerville Library. We will experiment with Zoom as a way to increase attendance. We will utilize “free tier” of zoom, which does limit online participation to 40 minutes. Depending on the results, we may look to use zoom in the future.
The board discussed internal operating procedures as a way of working in a more organized way. Items in this discussion regarded what internal approval was required before spending money on budgeted and budgeted items, and what criteria we should use when recommending increases or decreases in annual dues.
Our proposed criteria for changes to annual dues are as follows:
- Increases or decreases in dues will still require the vote of residents in the annual meeting. These criteria are meant to provide guidance, transparency, and consistency in our dues process.
- “Reserves” are defined as the end of fiscal year balance of our HOA bank account, after outstanding bills have been paid, and before collection of the annual dues following the annual HOA meeting.
- Our goal is for reserves to equal 100% of our annual budget, with an acceptable range of 90% to 105% of our annual budget.
- If our reserve falls below 90% of the annual budget, the board will propose an increase in dues that will bring us 1/2 way to our 100% goal, or reduce our budget.
- If our reserve rises above 105% of our annual budget, we recommend a temporary 1 year “rebate/reduction” in HOA dues that will bring us 1/2 way to return to our 100% goal.
We will revise our process for the neighborhood directory. Rather than a 3 ring binder, we will simplify it to a simple table that will fit on 5 or 6 sheets of paper. We will discuss whether residents would also like the option of an electronic copy. We will not be publishing an electronic directory online due to privacy and “junk mail” address scraping concerns, but a PDF document that is emailed is a possibility. If we do that, we will first give residents the opportunity to reduce the information that they include in the directory.
We discussed the purpose and administration of the westervilleoverlook.com web site and the Facebook Overlook group. The web site is the official information source and document repository for the HOA. All content is maintained by the board, or an appointed volunteer. The Facebook group is used for more easily publishing information to the neighborhood by the board, but is also available by residents for social and informational purposes. The board and the HOA social committee will be the primary administrators of the Facebook group. Our guidelines for posts are:
- The group is a private group, limited to residents of the Overlook
- Be nice
- No commercial advertising
- School and non-profit fundraiser announcement are not commercial advertising, but keep the volume to reasonable levels.
- Asking for, and providing recommendations for business and contractors is not commercial advertising.
- Announcing home sales for homes within the Overlook is allowed, and is not commercial advertising.
- No national or state political discussions
- Limited, and polite, discussion of local ballot issues and candidates is allowed.
John, Kari, and Sheryl’s board terms are expiring this year. All 3 board members expressed willingness to return to the board for another term, pending elections at the annual meeting.
We reviewed the annual budget and financial status. Our reserves are just over 90% of our proposed budget, so based on our new internal criteria for dues, we will not be recommending an increase in dues this year. But be aware that with inflation, and given that we are close to the 90% threshold, an increase is likely to be requested in 2027.
All members of the board were present.