Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Community Reserves Funding Level

[Muriel Kranowski (murielk]

Seconding the recommendation to get a Reserve Study. At Shadowlake Village
we engaged a specialist to do this for us earlier this year. She created a
very comprehensive 30-year Reserve Schedule that is going to inform our
2025 dues as well as future dues.

Now that we're 23 years in, with capital items increasingly needing repair
or replacement, it will be very helpful to us to have "what to fix/replace"
for every year and adjust our dues accordingly, although we can choose to
defer this or that item or find a less expensive way to handle something in
the coming year -- it's not a fixed document but rather a very detailed
guideline.

We hadn't been ignoring this issue and we do have a not-bad capital
reserve, but we were not systematic and future-oriented enough. Now, with
the Reserve Study in hand, we have a much clearer picture of what we need
to do and to save for year by year.

We're in the preliminary stage of our annual budget-prep cycle. I am very
interested in next week's general meeting at which our Finance Committee
will tell us what we should put into the Capital Reserve in 2025 and the
effect on our 2025 dues.
   Muriel at Shadowlake Village