Maintaining Financial Security for a Growing Community
Development and Real Estate:
Since July 2021, 66 new homes were completed and sold, and 143 homes are still under construction, bringing the total number of resident-owned units to 3,465. Combined with the current 958 rental units and additional builder-owned units, this puts us at 99.8% of “Total Allowable Residential.” There were also 179 resales in the past year.
Annual Audit:
We have completed another year of a “clean” audit (unqualified opinion), while maintaining strong controls over the accounting environment. By providing complete and accurate audit schedules to our auditors, we keep our audit fees low and our auditors happy.
Investments:
We analyze our cash deposit positions persistently to attain the highest interest yield while maintaining 100% Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) insurance on all our deposits. Our interest income for 2021-22 is estimated to be $60,000, which is about $14,000 less than last year due to reduced interest rates. We have a very effective CD purchase program with our bank, enabling us to be efficient with cash management while receiving very competitive CD interest rates compared to other banks. Our Master Reserves remain funded at 120%, a phenomenal achievement.
Master Assessments:
Master assessments for the upcoming 2022-23 FY will be increasing by $12 annually ($1/month) to $960. This is needed to cover increasing costs for our aging community. We have continued to encourage the participation of the monthly auto debit payment (ACH) program for collecting assessments, in which 86% of our homeowners participate. This keeps our cash flow even throughout the year and our delinquencies low at a rate of 1.5%.
How We Do It:
The community managers and the accounting manager work tirelessly for months on creating the budgets for 14 supplemental neighborhoods and the master community. Many of the budgets have a high level of complexity; community managers spend countless hours researching and reviewing costs to ensure the numbers are accurate and fair to all homeowners in the community. These budgets are then reviewed and approved by the IHCA Finance Committee and IHCA Board of Directors.
We want to thank the resident volunteers who serve on the finance committee and the board for their support throughout the year. The finance committee meets on the second Tuesday of each month at 5:30 p.m. The board meets every fourth Monday at 5:30 p.m. All meetings are open to the public. Find more details at issaquahhighlands.com/events or on the IHCA mobile
app.
Kristyn McKinnon is the IHCA accounting manager.
