How to Control expenses and increase revenues for the Association

This is Palani from unit owner 903.

There are couple of suggestions which board can consider or already proposed by other unit owners.

Issue:

1. From the boards 2009 and 2010 budgets, $83,000 increase in Electricity and Water/Sewer expenses is expected for 2010.  

2. Allow direct A/C procurement which benefits unit owners 

3. Residents please share your ideas suggestions

Suggestion:

1. The current management company and past board tried an year and half back introducing sensor based lights on 4 floors (laundry and compactor room). This was a welcome step. Now the current board has gone a step further in expanding this project to all the floors in the building. 

On several occasions the meeting room 2 A/C were noticed running even though it was unused. Management office had promised to ensure in future it's turned off if unused.

It would be every ones interest, if we could control our common area monthly maintenance expenses by turning off lights in laundry and compactor room if unused.

Note : A 5% maintenance fees is 100,000$ (Approx) on a 2.1 million dollar annual budget. 

2. A suggestion was made by an unit owner on procuring A/C directly from Islandaire company instead of buying it via middle men. This could save 200-300$ per A/C unit avoiding the middle men (vendor company).

cigarette smoking -outside the side door

This is Palani from unit 903.

Issue:

As per last board meeting minute the following item was mentioned. 

Q: What is the smoking policy of the James Monroe? Every time someone smokes in front of the building, the smoke seeps into the unit and is affecting the individuals of the unit’s health.
 

A: There is a strict “No Smoking” policy within the building. The Board agreed with the concerns of the tenant and will look into moving the smoking section away from the side entrance of the building that is used extensively by children and handicapped individuals.

Resolution:

Thanks to new Board members prompt action in resolving the unit owners long standing grievance. The unit owner had been appealing several times in past year and had now resolved at last.

Coinmach laundry machine issue

This is Palani from unit owner 903.

Sorry for looking to be too complaining. However for the monthly maintenance fees paid by each unit owner they deserve a better quality of service. Its unacceptable to see a repetitive pattern of same old policy followed by the management office which had to change for good.

On Aug 5th around noon, via email all the board members were alerted on the following issue:

Issue:

The Coin-mach laundry card machine was not accepting cash as it was full.  Due to this several residents had to either buy a new 5$ card or could not do their laundry for few days.

Note : Also you are aware the credit card machine is not functional for the last 2 years except for few days it was operational.

Question to ponder

1. Why the Cambridge management office could not even empty the cash periodically. Couldn't the manager mark this task as an routine maintenance work.
2. What value are we getting for 132k plus payment made to the Cambridge management company per every year as an service fee ?
3. If this simple laundry machine system could not be managed how good or efficient is this company could maintain our building ( approx 110 million dollar) ?
4. Is there an inventory of laundry machines which are reaching end of life in our building and a recommendation sent to board for replacement.

Follow-up: 

Later the board president, management office manager and Super emptied the machine the same evening. Also the board had decided to buy a new laundry card machine which could ensure the credit card can be also used.

Note: We appreciate all the hard work provided by our staff and management company. At same time compromising the Quality of service we receive could over all affect our community name in the neighborhood or our property value.  Our neighboring condominium association "Shore club" changed in one given year 3 management companies due to the poor quality of service. For management company we are one of customer for them, for us its our investment and we who live here.

Flood Insurance

This is Palani from unit 903.

Appreciate the unit owners to share similar concerns or issues if you had experienced in receiving flood insurance certificate from the management office. This is with regards to the new policy followed by our Cambridge Management office upon based on request from the insurance broker.

Self and another unit owner had been following up with the management office for the last few weeks. As per the new policy we need to provide several additional information as stated below to the flood insurance company Brown and Brown (http://www.bbmetro.com/) 

Response from management office for our request to have a blank flood insurance certificate

the Flood Insurance or any other type of insurance does not renew automatically, any time there is a change in Broker/Policy and / or Term; lenders will require new Insurance Certificates including Flood. Consequently, Management does have the Broker working on development of a spreadsheet.

Each Unit will be listed on separate Insurance Certificates. The documents will be sent to your lender and Management will leave copies of the documents at the Front Desk for your records and perusal. In order to oblige, Management will need to know the name of your lender(s), lender’s fax number(s), loan number(s), and mortgagee clause. To make the process easy, simply supply us with a copy of the lenders request letters. Documents are usually produced by the Broker within 48 hours from receipt of the request.

Our Question to management office how this process could be made simple and save time to focus on other pressing needs of the association projects and improving Quality of Service

1. Why doesn't the management office maintain a centralized repository of all residents lenders information, loan number etc instead of providing it to an broker. Reason the insurance company or broker may change every year. Rather each year the unit owners have to follow the management office  to provide the same information. If we calculate the amount of phone calls, emails, time for both unit owners and management office doesn't this process look like a joke.

2. Even if the broker sets a new process shouldn't the Cambridge management office follow what is optimal or best practice for every party involved in the process ? 

3. As per my discussion with my lender (or any other mortgage lender) doesn't require an unit number to be provided on the flood insurance certificate except the property address  needs to be mentioned. However if the management office or the broker fax it then they can have individual unit owners loan number mentioned on it.

4. Any unit owner requesting the flood insurance copy need to be provided the same irrespective of whether the unit owner doesn't want it to be sent management office or the broker. Unit owner can ensure in a timely fashion manner the fax had been received by the lender. 

5. This year the flood insurance renewal took time as new board took office. Due to which the mortgage lender will take their own policy if it it's not sent on time.

Rather making this whole process efficient and repetitive way why does the management office manager is complicating it.

Note: I had sent a soft copy of my lender information flood insurance letter on 08/09/2010 as per email request from Cambridge management office and till date my lender had not received my flood insurance certificate or I have received a copy of the same from the front desk. So the broker or the management office promise had already failed.