ðŸ’°2016 Assessments & BudgetÂ ðŸš¦

Why Assessments Are Collected
Assessment are collected each year to meet the following operational expenses in our neighborhood.

Constable Patrol
Electricity - Street lights
Pool & Lifeguard Service
Lawn Care & Landscaping
Water & Sewerage
Insurance
General Maintenance, Social events & Admin

See our 2016 Budget for details of our projected operational expenses.

Balancing Our Budget
The Board's most important responsibility is prudent spending of your assessments. As discussed at our September 2015 Homeowner meeting, we needed to reduce expenditure by over $60k to get to a balanced budget and start putting away some money into our reserve account. Here are some of the ways that we reached a balanced budget for 2016.

Social events budget reduced by close to half.
Scaling back River Laurel Beautification project and spreading it out over several years.
Reduced neighborhood inspections from 2 to 1 per month.
M.U.D. offered assistance with 20% of patrol costs.

2016 Dues & Late Fee Schedule
Base Assessment for 2016 remains at $440.00. After January 31st late fees apply as shown below.

$440.00 - If paid by Jan 31
$484.00 - If paid after Jan 31
$584.00 - If paid after Feb 28
$584.00 + Legal fees incurred in effort to collect dues - If paid after March 31st

Need Time To Pay?
If you need more time to pay please fill out a Payment Agreement and mail it in with your first payment by January 31st.

2 Monthly Payments
Jan	$242.00
Feb	$242.00

Total	$484.00

3 Monthly Payments
Jan	$195.00
Feb	$195.00
Mar	$194.00
Total	$584.00

FIRST PAYMENT MUST BE RECEIVED BY JANUARY 31ST.

Payments are considered received on the post mark date applied by the Post Office.

Do Not Wait Until March!
In case you are unable to pay the dues all at once in January please take advantage of the easy payment plan options shown above. Do not wait until March to as it will be too late by then and additional fees will apply.

Reserve Funding
A responsible Association needs to develop a funding plan for unexpected expenses, future repair, maintenance and replacement of major common area structures and features. Laurel Oaks is at the early stages of putting such a plan together that will enable us to offset anticipated major common area expenditure which is important especially as the community ages. We hope to continue the conversation around this and fully develop a stable funding plan that will ensure beautiful and well maintained common areas. We are seeking volunteers to help us through this journey. Please let us know if you'd like to be a part of our Finance & Budgeting Committee.

What 100% Compliance Means For Us.
When everyone does their part and pays on time it ....

Eliminates thousands of dollars in administrative, legal and collection costs. This leaves more funds to put towards security, maintenance and community improvement.
Eliminates many hours of administrative work required to track delinquencies and send out delinquency notices.
Frees up board members and volunteers time, allowing them to focus on other community maintenance & improvement projects.

Pay Your Dues Online and get current.

Assessment Reminders have been mailed out to everyone. In case you mailed in your payment after January 18th please disregard the reminder.

Volunteerism
The strength of our Association lies in the effective volunteer efforts of its members in the day to day operations. We are very excited about our plans for 2015 and are counting on volunteer involvement to help us succeed. As a self-managed HOA your participation either on a committee or on the board is key to our success.