SUN CITY – Each year about this time, the Sun City association board of directors determines its priorities and goals for the following 12 months.
Residents will be hearing a lot about 11 subjects or projects planned in 2015. Some of them will continue projects began earlier, some will be new. While no major changes in programs, finances, or activities are planned, some projects will have a direct impact on residents. One deals with terms and term limits on the board itself, and several projects involve new technologies and possible new ways the board will communicate to residents.
Here’s the 2015 list, with comments from Lauren Lee, executive director. They are not mentioned here in any specific priority order.
1. Continue the implementation of productivity improvements within each department. “This is an ongoing effort that has helped us improve our processes and management, and there is no ending time for this project,” Lee said.
2. Develop a plan for review, purchase and implementation of enterprise software. “This is designed to help us improve how we manage, process, and coordinate our governance and operations,” Lee said.
3. Review resident programs and lifestyle activities through surveys and determine how to provide new opportunities. “This is a basic program we work with constantly,” Lee said. “We will continue to ask residents for feedback on existing activities and ideas for new ones.”
4. Continue to improve communications to residents by hiring a communications specialist and acquire improved web/digital technology. “Our first full-time communications coordinator started in November and is working with our marketing manager and committee to create information that is interesting and attractive,” Lee said. “We also will implement new software that is designed to improve and expand newsletters and information to residents, charter clubs, and special interest groups.” (See separate related story in this issue).
5. Implement a new, more balanced color palette in common landscaped areas. “Residents will see different combinations of colors in areas where we plant flowers and other vegetation,” Lee said.
6. Implement a marketing plan that will continue to attract new residents to our community. “We have formed a new marketing committee that is developing a marketing plan locally and regionally and possibly even nationally,” Lee said.
7. Review board term and term limits to create more continuity and stability among board personnel,” Lee said. “This could possibly involve changing the staggered term standard from the current “three elected in one year and four the next” to a 3-2-2 system, and also may address the question of how long a member should be allowed to remain on the board.”
8. Improve our accounting functions and finance department processes. “We have begun this effort by out-sourcing our accounting functions to First Service Residential, our management company. FSR will begin collecting and processing resident assessment payments in January,” Lee said.
9. Review APN (Attached properties, townhouses, etc.) assessments, including reserves and operating costs. “We are looking at developing fairness and balance in our APN financing activities,” Lee said.
10. Develop an internal staff process for dealing with contractors and businesses. “We need to improve how we work with outside businesses and contractors, and how we communicate this effort to residents,” Lee said.
11. Review the association’s collections policy. “We are coming out of the economic downturn of 2008, and evaluating how we handled expanded collections activities, assessment delinquencies, and foreclosures,” Lee said.
