Pines treasurer highlights small decrease to income from investments to board

By Greg Ellison

(April 29, 2021) Ocean Pines Treasurer Doug Parks reported on the associations’ financial standing, investment rates of return and reserve balances during the Board of Directors meeting last Wednesday.

Parks said the association’s cash position has improved the last couple of months.

At the end of March, the association reported approximately $11.9 million in cash and investments, with that sum split with $6 million in CDARs (Certificate of Deposit Account Registry Service) and $5.9 million in money market funds and other operating accounts.

“We have $11.9 million in cash as compared to in January … we had $10.5 million,” he said. “It was down to $9.9 million in February based on some authorized spends.”

Parks said a portion of the higher cash totals are from assessment fees that have been collected for the upcoming fiscal year.

After remaining stagnant since last fall, Parks said the overall investment rate of return on CDARs took a recent dip during March.

“The past couple of months the rate of return on our investments has been 1 percent and now it’s down to 0.85 percent,” he said. “That’s obviously due to market conditions and other factors that control those rates.”

Looking at reserve balances, Parks said the overall total dropped slightly from $6.5 million in February to $6 million during March.

“Not too much has changed,” he said.

The $6 million balance to close March includes: $4 million in general replacements, $1.1 million in bulkheads, $600,000 in drainage, $100,000 for roads and $100,000 for new capital.

“Back in January, our target balance for all reserve funds for the end of the fiscal year was at $5.2 million,” he said.

By the following month that benchmark was beat.

“In February, based on adjustments and other estimates, it came up to about $5.58 million,” he said.

Parks said the financial forecasting has become less challenging as the end of the fiscal year approaches.

“We’ve got a much better picture,” he said. “We’re now projecting $5.6 million would be in reserve funding at the end of the fiscal year.”