90% Budget Rejection Process A Fraud!
Monday, November 22nd at 9 AM is the 2010 Annual Membership Meeting. The most important item on the annual membership meeting is the ratification or rejection of the Board’s proposed budget for the subsequent year.
As every Sun City Anthem member should know, it is IMPOSSIBLE for Sun City Anthem unit owners to reject a budget. Thanks to what some of us consider fraudulent behavior by Del Webb and the subsequent continued behavior by SCA boards since 1999, SCA Boards always have a blank check to do whatever they wish on the budget. That is not what is intended by Nevada Statutes.
We have vigorously complained about this outrageous situation for over 4 years; but, it has been a waste of time. Without there being an ethical board majority who understand the true meaning of “fiduciary duty”, there is no way to force any changes to anything in the budget or in the rate of assessments. For anyone to pretend otherwise is plainly insulting. For example:
* SCA CC&Rs have always required (originally inserted by Del Webb in 1999) that over 90% of 7,144 unit owners much show up in person to reject a budget. Otherwise, whatever the board wants in the budget is automatically approved. We believe that rule is a license to financially abuse/defraud the members.
* Even if 90% wanted to attend the annual meeting, there is no place large enough to hold a meeting for so many thousands of members.
* NRS 116 only requires 50% +1 to reject a budget, so the Del Webb and recent boards have been knowingly forcing unreasonable/bogus budget rejection criteria on SCA members for over a decade.
* Even if only 50% +1 was the SCA rule, it would be impossible to find a place to seat over 3,572 members.
* So, the only feasible way to conduct an ethical budget ratification process in SCA would be to implement the State standard and to conduct it by secret ballot by mail. The ballots/votes on the budget, and any other ballot measures placed before the membership, would be counted during the November annual meeting–as we do for the May board election membership meeting.
While serving on the SCA Board, I proposed CC&R changes to remove Del Webb’s outrageous 90% budget rejection requirement, revert to the State criteria of 50%, and conduct a secret ballot prior to the annual meeting for ratification. But, that was soundly rejected by the other directors in 2007 and 2008. The main objection was that is would be too hard to do. But, the objections were based on faulty assumptions on how the membership approval would have to be conducted. Where there is the will, there is a way–always!
Those who attend the annual meeting on November 22nd @ 9 AM are encouraged to support this idea. And, since a “decision” is impossible during this annual members meeting, the matter will have to become a issue for the next board campaign.
It will be interesting to see what lame barriers will be used to argue against this practical issue. No matter what anyone says, the members have a right to meaningfully participate in the budget approval process. That right does not truly exist at this time.
How could any reasonable person argue to retain such an unreasonable/fraudulent budget ratification process? Could you not agree that no matter what it takes, the outrageous “90% budget rejection criteria” and the “no voting on the budget by mail” must be fixed in the future?
Should every board candidate in the future be required to sign a pledge to repair this broken process?
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.