So you attended your Annual General Meeting and were “voluntold” to join the board. 

How is your condominium corporation’s budget looking for the current fiscal year? Were you prepared for the tax and rate increases passed by your municipal council?

What does fiduciary responsibility really mean anyway?

In the Fall 2021 newsletter editions (Field Notes from a Condo Corpo Treasurer https://cci-manitoba.ca/cci-manitoba-magazine/article/18, page 12) Alan Forbes wrote about a Manitoba Hydro Rebate Program for eligible customers. It was discussed again in the Condo Conversation Corner feature of the Winter 2022 edition and included details on eligibility (Check your Manitoba Hydro Bill, page 20 https://cci-manitoba.ca/cci-manitoba-magazine/article/1). If you pay your own Hydro bill you are likely eligible for a reduction of taxes applied to your hydro account and rebate of taxes paid at the higher rate. Who doesn’t love rebates and lower taxes?

In the past year I set up a GIC-ladder in our condo corporation’s (CC’s) reserve fund to counteract the meager interest rates payable in most savings accounts. First, I determined the surplus in the account in relation to our needs over the next five years, taking into account our projections for reserve fund contributions (RFCs) and the projected spending based on our current reserve fund study (RFS). Given that interest rates are likely going up over the next few years, I then split the surplus amount into five lumps and invested each lump in a GIC, with terms of one, two, three, four and five years. The plan is to follow a similar thought process to rollover principal and interest into five year GICs along with any additional surplus each year onward.

So you joined the Board of your Condominium Corporation (CC) and ended up as Treasurer even though you are not an accountant. Do you sometimes feel lost, overwhelmed, or unsure how to provide value to your CC and the owners? Here are some lessons learned from someone in the same situation.³

Here are some new items and others concerning previous newsletter articles, Lunch-n-Learns, webinars and Conversations in previous Newsletter editions.