By Greg Ellison

(Jan. 28, 2021) Along with updating investment and reserve account balances, Ocean Pines Treasurer Doug Parks reported continued progress on homeowner assessment collections during the Board of Directors meeting last Wednesday.

To end November, the association had approximately $12 million in cash and investments, divided between $7.1 million in CDARs (Certificate of Deposit Account Registry Service), along with $4.9 million in money market funds and other operating accounts.

The overall investment rate of return on CDARs remained at 1 percent in November, where it has hovered since September after dropping from 1.8 percent in August.

Parks said association cash totals took a slight dip in November.

“At the end of October, we had $12.5 million in cash,” he said. “We did have some approved and executed capital expenses in November.”

Turning to reserve account balances to end November, including replacement, bulkheads, roads, drainage and new capital, Parks said the cumulative balance was more than $6.7 million to end November.

The totals include approximately $4.2 million in replacement funds, $1.8 million for bulkheads, $215,000 for roads, $433,000 for drainage and $87,000 for new capital.

Parks said the total balance was $5.6 million at the beginning of fiscal 20-21, with a targeted balance of $5.01 million to close the year on April 30.

“We’ll continue to make sure we track towards that,” he said. “We have to make sure that any unplanned expenditures or emergency expenditures that may come up that we manage that accordingly.”

Collection of outstanding assessment dues continues to track positively, with Parks reporting to close December about $8.8 million of $9.1 million due is in hand.

Now at above 96 percent, Parks said remittance of annual assessments is now tracking a tick above prior averages of 94-95 percent at this point in the year, but still represents significant dollars.

“That 96.6 percent reflects a $303,000 shortfall that we haven’t collected,” he said.

On a related note, Parks said General Manager John Viola and staff are continuing to track delinquent account balances from previous years.

“The cumulative of accounts that have not been collected for more than one year,” he said. “It covers multiple years.”

Parks said to end the 2020 calendar year, 461 properties had outstanding balances totaling approximately $921,000.

“These are funds we hope to recover at some point,” he said.