By Greg Ellison

(March 25, 2021) Ocean Pines Treasurer Doug Parks reported on assessment collection totals, reserve balances, investment rates of return and referendum costs during the Board of Directors meeting on Saturday.

Parks said the percentage of uncollected assessment fees for the current fiscal year continues to dwindle with more than $8.9 million received by the end of February.

“Which is actual 98 percent of the billed assessment,” he said. “Unfortunately, that still leaves us with a shortfall of $181,679.”

Despite the remaining balance, Parks said the current mark is on par with prior years.

“We are at a pretty good pace,” he said.

Looking at reserve account balances, the association closed February with total of $6.5 million: $4 million in general replacements, $1.5 million in bulkheads, $700,000 in drainage, $200,000 for roads and $100,000 for new capital.

“That’s pretty much on par with where we had hoped to be at this point and time,” he said.

Parks said recently improved efforts to track reserve expenditures have helped to assure that sufficient funds are retained to manage operations.

“The projected balance in reserve funds right now is $5.5 million [and] last month it was $5.2 million,” he said.

Parks attributed the higher projection in part to recent delays for several planned purchases.

“We’re looking a little bit more favorable with regard to the amount of money that will projected to be in reserve funds by the end of the fiscal year,” he said.

Parks also cautioned that reserve balances could fluctuate depending on potential spending requests during the current fiscal year that runs through April.

Turning to investment rate of return and cash deposits, Parks said the percentage has remained stagnant since last August.

“We’re still running at 1 percent interest on CDARS,” he said.

At the end of February,  association ledgers reflected $9.9 million in cash, down from $10.5 million the prior month.

“Obviously, we had some spending in that arena,” he said.

Cash and investments included $6.1 million CDARs (Certificate of Deposit Account Registry Service) and $3.8 million in money market funds and other operating accounts.

With the public hearing for the spending-limit referendum scheduled to take place next Saturday, Parks explained how the bill for the referendum would be paid.

“So people understand if we had to run a referendum where that money would be pulled from in our budget,” he said.

Parks said all related costs are deemed an operational expense and not derived from reserve accounts.

“That will always come out of the operational side of our budget and not out of the reserve funding,” he said. “It has a direct effect on the assessment dollars.”