Between a rock
and user fees
One unfortunate, and perhaps unintended, consequence of the failure to obtain a POA assessment increase is constant user fee increases that have divided the POA membership into partisan groups. This has also shifted the debate from a focus on assessments as the means to pay for amenities, as our declarations intended, to user fees paying for amenities.
Members are more divided than ever over which amenity should bear the burden of fee increases. Nowhere is this division more apparent than between golfing and non-golfing members.
Golf has become the target of much criticism, some of it well deserved, for costing too much to maintain in the face of declining rounds played. A good case can be made for closing courses or selling golf holes.
Most of us agree, however, that closing golf courses, or any amenity for that matter, will have a negative impact on our image as a viable community. This could put the POA and the city of Bella Vista on a property value death spiral just at a time when we should be vigorously marketing the city as an affordable place to retire.
Nevertheless, closing golf courses or other amenities is a real possibility, if we can't find a way to fund them.
It's important to remember that all of our amenities contribute to our quality of life and property values -- whether you use them or not.
If you were selling your house, would you care if the potential buyer was a golfer, tennis player, fisherman, boater or liked to bike and walk on safe trails?
While golf is a vital part of marketing Bella Vista and very important to the roughly 8,000 members who play golf, the other 17,000 POA residents frankly don't give a hoot how much we have to pay to play.
Some of them bitterly resent subsidizing the cost of maintaining golf from their assessments even if golf does provide the largest source of fee revenue.
Golf fee revenue, it should be remembered, enables smaller subsidies from assessments for all other amenities, some of which cover only a tiny fraction of their cost through fees.
Board directors have an obligation to act in the best interest of all members of the POA. We wish to protect our property values by maintaining a broad base of amenities.
We understand that the real solution is a small assessment increase spread across all of the membership so that we can maintain amenities as the declarations intended.
However, minus an assessment increase, we have limited choices other than user fees for increased revenue. Despite budget cuts and reductions in staff over the past three years, we still must find a way to cover operating and capital budget shortfalls well into the future.
Making fees fair, affordable and competitive in the market is the challenge. It is no easy task, and it's guaranteed to produce two results: It will not provide a permanent solution to our ongoing financial problems, and it will ratchet up the partisan debate on which fees should be increased.
My hope is that we can maintain civility and reason in the conversation.
Dave Barfield
Bella Vista
Editorial on 12/10/2014