Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Spending Extra Money

[Mac Thomson (mac]

I too am not clear on this concept of "Extra Money".  Is it a big  
lump sum of profits from the original development or is it simply a  
small amount of surplus from your annual operating budget?

We're pretty fiscally conservative around here, which is to say that  
we've chosen to keep a lot of our original profit and annual  
surpluses in savings (~$100K) for long term reserves and possible  
unexpected expenses.  As amateur developers, we're not entirely sure  
that everything we built will continue to serve us as planned (like  
the eco-friendly pathways that are disintegrating at an alarming  
rate).  Although now that we've been here for 6 years, we're getting  
a better handle on all that.

When we do have a lot of special projects to prioritize and fund (10  
or more?), we have used what we call a Budget Party like Ken  
described.  Our first step, however, is to decide how much to spend  
in total on the special projects and whether to fund that from  
savings or increased dues.  However much we fund, that's the total  
amount of play dollars that get distributed to the members to spend  
at the Budget Party.

When we have relatively few special project requests (6 or less?), we  
don't bother putting together a Budget Party and instead just make  
the yes or no decisions on each request during our regular community  
budget meetings.  That's also where we decide on the annual operating  
budgets for each team, which is relatively fast and easy now that we  
have 6 years of financial history.

I don't really think that the idea that Becky originally mentioned of  
allocating the money to various committees and then having them  
prioritize within their committee makes a whole lot of sense if  
you're talking about a lot of money.  How much money are you talking  
about?

Cheers,
Mac

--
Mac Thomson

Heartwood Cohousing
Southwest Colorado
http://www.heartwoodcohousing.com


"Gratitude is Heaven itself."
        - William Blake
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On May 30, 2006, at 4:16 AM, cohousing-l-request [at] cohousing.org wrote:

> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 12:52:58 -0400
> From: ken <gebser [at] speakeasy.net>
> Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Spending Extra Money
> To: Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
> Message-ID: <447B26EA.3050005 [at] speakeasy.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
>
> I didn't know there was such a thing as "extra money"....  :)
>
> Here's an idea I read from somebody at Twin Oaks and am adapting to  
> your
> issue.
>
> Advocates for different budget items set up booths with information  
> and
> pitches.  Members of the community are given play money and go  
> around to
> the booths, pick the budget items they support by handing over however
> much play cash they deem appropriate.  This sort of decision scheme
> would provide a lot more granularity to each member's decision than
> simply giving each budget item an up-or-down vote.
>
> Of course there really doesn't need to be actual, physical "booths"  
> and
> a specified date/time and place for everyone to partake.  A properly
> constructed web application would accomplish the same purpose and  
> allow
> all members to distribute their play cash electronically whenever and
> from wherever there's a net-connected pee-see.