Question: If the committee adopts a 10-year plan and programmed maintenance, what happens if, in the future, a new committee decides on a different set of goals? Do we start over again?
Answer: There is always going to be change.
Craig Welsh:
I split the terminology. I call a 10-year plan a forecast, and annual committee decisions are the budgets. If you have expenditures like renovations planned for the next few years, and then the plumbing blocks and other unexpected maintenance items pop up, there go the upgrades. Things change and the forecast changes.
When you sit down to look at your forecast every year, you set your budget. If the two don’t align, it’s probably time to update your forecast. While they align, life is good. Your levies are still going to work, your general plans are still going to work, and you can agree and set that budget. If they don’t align, it’s time to consider your costs. You need to be able to look into the future and say, “Yes, we’re going to have the money when we need it.”
Marcus Munstermann:
There is always going to be change. Let’s look at the decision for something like retrofitting EV chargers. If the decision has been made to allocate funds, it’s budgeted in the first instance and then the next committee comes along and says they don’t want to do that, those things are in flux anyway.
While the budget says that we’re putting aside twenty thousand dollars to spend on EV charging, you still have to have a discussion, motions, quotes, all of those things come into play. That will end up driving the outcome.
This post appears in the August 2024 edition of The NSW Strata Magazine.
QIA Group E: info@qiagroup.com.au P: 1300 309 201