The Bella Vista Property Owners Association's Board spent most of its March meeting working on a long-term project to update POA policies. They met on Thursday, March 23, in the Bella Vista Country Club board room.
First, the Board heard about finances. Chief Operating Officer Tom Judson read the finance report since Chief Financial Officer Beth Nagel could not attend the meeting. The reports are posted on the POA website bellavistpoa.com/governance/financials, Judson reminded the board.
"Not a bad start to the year," he summarized. At the end of February, both revenue and profit were over budget and expenses came in under budget. "Year to date" numbers where similar.
Departments that did especially well include food and beverage, annual golf and green fees and investment income.
One reason the expenses were low is empty positions the POA is struggling to fill, Judson said.
The POA owns the water utility, but finances are kept separate. The water department has not been doing as well, he said, with both income and profit below budget. Expenses were up.
"It's still early in the year. I'm not concerned," he said about the departments that did not reach their budget goals.
The board voted on 32 policy changes at the meeting. All of them were on a second and final reading, so the policies will go into effect immediately.
The 32 policies were part of a continuing effort to update the POA's governing documents. In many cases, the changes were very simple -- just a matter of word choice. For example, in policy 3.01, the words "his/her" were changed to "their."
After the meeting, staff attorney Doug McCash said via email, "The majority of changes were grammatical in nature and meant to make the policies easier to read."
A few policies were deleted because they were redundant or unnecessary. A table of contents was added.
The process to change a policy begins with the Rules and Regulations Committee, which sends a recommendation to the board. The board discusses those recommendations at a work session and chooses either to vote on the policy at their next board meeting or to send it back to the committee for changes. The process is repeated, usually one month later, as a second reading.
"I know we've talked this one to death," Board Chairman David Brandenburg said about the policy changes.
Now that the policies are complete, the committee will move on to the bylaws, McCash said.
"There are no plans to review or propose changes to the Declaration or Articles of Incorporation," he added.