Image Up Advertising & Design

4 SOLERA DIAMOND VALLEY | SEPTEMBER 2022 By Kathy Caraher, Resident Are you as confident as you could be about our elections? Do online fear mongers, nightly news, tweets, Facebook postings and rumor mills give you sleepless nights? With fall elections quickly approaching I can easily understand your feelings. Back in 2008, I decided to do something about it. I had retired and could finally predict my schedule, so I decided to help with Pierce County's Elections. It was a big one, the Presidential Election! First, we had to survive a background check and fingerprinting. They obviously realized I was okay as I had been through multiple checks before during my career. After a brief training we had a tour of the County Election facility, giving me a good overview of the process. I was really amazed at all that was involved and the processes for protection of voters' identity and ballots. I started working about two months before the election. As ballots started arriving at the Post Office a special detail would pick them up and bring them to the facility. They were then run through a machine like the ones at the Post Office that sort your regular mail. Our machines would also scan the signature you had placed on the back of the envelope. Before opening the envelopes, they were stored until all these scanned signatures were matched to your Voter Registration. Qualified workers would compare the current scanned signature with the one that you had signed during your Voter Registration. If we ran into ones that didn't match up the research team followed up. Most situations involved husband/wife/family teams signing the other's ballot envelope accidentally or people who had aged in/ out of their signature. A teen's signature would frequently change as they began their careers and elderly people sometimes have physical difficulty signing. Voters were sometimes contacted if something was amiss. There usually was an easy explanation. Forgeries were rare, if any during the 10 years I worked elections. Stay tuned for Part Two, After the Signature Check, in the October View. How to Not Worry About Our Elections - Part One Reserves — What are They? By Ralph Grider, Board Treasurer The association's reserve account is established for the purpose of repair, restoration, replacement, or maintenance of the associations common area components, and for litigation involving the association. Except under certain limited circumstances, Civil Code 5510 prohibits boards from utilizing reserve funds for any other purposes. Funding an association's reserve account is considered to be part of a director's fiduciary duties. A reserve study must be performed every three years. Ours is performed every year, with a walk through every third year. The reserve study is the primary tool for determining the funding necessary for the association's account. It provides a list of all the major common area components that the association must maintain, as well as an estimate of the remaining useful life of those components based on physical evaluation by a third party (Reserve Studies Inc.). This is in accordance with Civil Code 5550. The summary must include: 1) An estimation of remaining life expectancy of those components. 2) A statement of annual contributions necessary to defray such costs. 3) Identification of common area components with less than a 30- year life. 4) A statement showing the current reserves available to defray such costs. 5) Percent funded (Actual Reserve Funds divided by the Accumulated Depreciation of such components). 6) A statement regarding the procedures used for calculation and establishment of the reserves. Our reserve company, Reserve Studies Inc., presents to the board four funding plans. The Board has always chosen Plan #3. This plan increases (occasionally decreases) current reserves contributions as necessary to cover future expenditures and achieve 100 percent funding by the end of the 30-year projection. The current contribution is 16 percent of your dues. It most fairly matches the depreciation of the common components. Each component is assigned a current cost. Factors such as RSI's in-house database, contractor proposal, actual cost, and national cost guide are used. Each component is assigned a life in years, annual depreciation, and monthly contribution from your dues. An example would be the new Card/Key entry recently installed. The cost was $20,100. RSI determined it had a 30-year lifespan. The annual depreciation is $670, with the monthly contribution therefore $8.17. Although money is assigned to each component depending upon the value of it, if the cost to replace that component is greater than the amount in that account, the extra funding comes from the total reserve account. In other words we have one large pot of money we draw from. I hope I haven't confused you. Your reserve account funding as of May 31, 2022 was $1,628,088 composed of cash and CDs. The board's objective is to keep the percent funded above 80 percent. Each month we evaluate this number when the financials are presented to us, and make adjustments if necessary. Our financial condition is considered excellent, and our objective is to maintain that level with your help. Thank you for your patience and support of your current and future boards.

• Cover