[Booboobaby]

Has anyone ever heard of paying for a "pension" in their HOA fees? I noticed when they give us the report of where are fees are being distributed, that aside from the normal like garbage pickup, pool maintenance and landscaping, we are paying toward a pension. Not for nothing, but big companies aren't even offering pensions anymore, where does a HOA have the right to give a pension to and who, the office help and/or the maintenance crew?? If this is legal and a normal thing, great if not, I think I should be investigating this further. Just so you know, we do not have a so call "company" running our HOA it is just the board members in our community. I also tried getting an answer from lawyers on-line but they all want a small fee to answer this question....really??
Thanks for any and all replies.

[JimKrowe]

HOAs are corporations under Florida law...Their filings online should reveal this information. Is it possible? I would think so if in the docs and approved under FL law..


Strange indeed

[macrodome2]

I've been the president of our HOA for the last 4 years. You have to check your HOA documents but most associations do not allow board members to be compensated and this would include a pension. Do you have "hired" office staff? They may be entitled to a pension. It would all depend on what the board approved. Be advised that most personnel records are confidential and not provided to members but you should be able to find out from your board what the definition of the "pension" line item is on the budget and what it applies to.

The State Statute you want to look at is 720.303 section 12. Statutes & Constitution :View Statutes : Online Sunshine

(12) COMPENSATION PROHIBITED.—A director, officer, or committee member of the association may not directly receive any salary or compensation from the association for the performance of duties as a director, officer, or committee member and may not in any other way benefit financially from service to the association. This subsection does not preclude:
(a) Participation by such person in a financial benefit accruing to all or a significant number of members as a result of actions lawfully taken by the board or a committee of which he or she is a member, including, but not limited to, routine maintenance, repair, or replacement of community assets.
(b) Reimbursement for out-of-pocket expenses incurred by such person on behalf of the association, subject to approval in accordance with procedures established by the association’s governing documents or, in the absence of such procedures, in accordance with an approval process established by the board.
(c) Any recovery of insurance proceeds derived from a policy of insurance maintained by the association for the benefit of its members.
(d) Any fee or compensation authorized in the governing documents.
(e) Any fee or compensation authorized in advance by a vote of a majority of the voting interests voting in person or by proxy at a meeting of the members.
(f) A developer or its representative from serving as a director, officer, or committee member of the association and benefiting financially from service to the association.

[Booboobaby]

Thank you for your response. It was VERY helpful. I don't believe any of the board members are getting the pension. We have a woman in the office, who also lives in our community and then we have maintenance guys, not sure how many, that take care of some things around the community. So it's my understanding that the pension had to be voted on by board members is that correct? In other words, a pension is not usually part of your HOA fees?

[JimKrowe]

well, if your board has approved certain expenses, well you would be indirectly subsidizing ANY payments, right?

[marc3565]

Just consider it part of the payroll expenses for the paid staff.

[macrodome2]

The board sets the salary and benefits and the cost of those items are included in your HOA dues.

Our HOA has a management firm and they handle all the personnel items and payroll. The HOA pays for all of the personnel expenses and there is a line item in the budget for personnel which is incorporated into the dues.

We have 3 full time staff and one part time. Two of the 3 full timers are hourly the other one is salary. We have a benefits package that is offered to each full time employee. It includes: paid holidays, paid time off (2 weeks), health insurance, and a 401K plan that the employee contributes to. I don't recall if there is any matching contribution because none of our employees have opted into that and they have to be there for 1 year before they are eligible.

Salary and benefit changes are voted on by the board, although it's generally the president and/or treasurer that works out the salary increases and makes the recommendation for the board to vote on. In our HOA this is done when we plan the budget for the following year. We just adopted the budget for 2021 this past week, so all of that was done in September. The board must introduce/propose the budget in one meeting (Sept), then send it out(mail) to the members and adopt it the following month (Oct). This has to be a 2 month process. They can't introduce the budget and adopt it at the same meeting.

I would think you should be able to find out the salary range and benefits associated with each position in the HOA. They may not give you the actual person's salary, but they should give you a range. The benefits should not be confidential.

We are a large community (900 homes) with only one HOA (no sub-HOAs) so the jobs are demanding. In addition, we have at least 250 kids in the community and that comes with it's own challenges, so we tend to pay well and have good benefits to attract and retain staff. But that philosophy comes from the current board and could change if the board changes.

One final item, people who live in the community are not eligible for employment by our HOA. We don't think it's a good idea to have a residents implementing policy and having access to all of the HOA information on the other residents. If the staff isn't "friends" with the some of the residents, then we don't have to worry about them favoring their "friends" over other residents.