How ready should we be for budget season?

By: Tarra Eshgh, CMCA®, AMS®, PCAM® - ST&R Portfolio Management

It’s almost that time of the year – “the budget season!” Some may find the budget season to be the scariest and most stressful part of the year, and some may find it exciting where we get to plug in numbers and project an increase for next year’s annual operating expenses.
Budget preparation is one of the best parts about community association management – without adequate funding for each expense, a community’s day-to-day will be challenging to manage because a good budget leads to consistent growth of community’s finances and health.
Please see below for the basic steps of budget preparation:

• Find out any projected increases from all vendors that provide services for a community – if they can’t give us an increase percentage, then we will have to project it based on an inflation – a start between 3% - 5%. Except for insurance, we will need to contact an agent for their projection; it’s usually between 35%-40% today’s world.

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