The Board Announces New Assessments

On Monday, November 29, the Colleton River Club Board announced increases in assessments and fees for both the Owners and Invitational Program ("IP") participants. For 2022, the annual assessments will be:

  • Full Members:                  $23,565
  • Lifestyle Members:          $15,874
  • IP (Local):                        $18,000                  
  • IP (National):                   $14,625
The assessments for Full and Lifestyle Members do not include the $20,000 assessment approved for the amenities in March 2021. Owners who elected to pay the special assessment under the five-year installment plan will pay an annual assessment of $28,015 (Full) or $20,324 (Lifestyle). Please recall that IP participants do not pay special assessments.

Here are some fun facts:

  • Full Dues (2017):             $18,025
  • Full Dues (2022):             $23,565 (5.4% per year increase)
  • Full Dues (2027):             $30,808 (assumes 5.4% increases)
The Board noted that the increases in Colleton's assessments were less than the increases of some of our peer clubs. However, the Board "forgot" to include the actual level of assessments at the other Clubs. I'm doing a bit of research and will post the results when I find them.

Are our assessments reasonable? I don't know. The Board agreed (in transparently bad faith) to appoint a "special finance subcommittee" to do a "deep dive" into the Club's finances to determine whether our financial results were reasonable. The Chair of the special finance subcommittee was reassigned to Greens and Grounds and two members of the special finance subcommittee resigned (I must have missed the email from the Board disclosing those resignations). The special finance subcommittee was disbanded and the task of doing the "deep dive" was reassigned to the Finance Committee. Nothing further has been heard--I hope they're OK!

Comments

  1. UnknownDecember 9, 2021 at 7:38 AM

    I note that IP Local fees are now basically equivalent to the Owners' Operating Assessment (IP Local dues are 99.92% of Owners' Operating Assessment). This is way out of sink with what non-resident fees are for comparable clubs but I doubt that it matters given the the Local IP program has been suspended and will no doubt, given the uncertainty of a golf membership being attached to a Lot in the future if we reach our Golfer cap of 610, be shutdown permanently. Given our growth we don't have a lot of time to figure out how to avoid ever having an Owner attempting to sell his home if the sale didn't include a golf membership. If that ever happened the marketability would be basically zero. Our golf cap is 610 and we currently have some 579 golfers (Full Golf Members of 555 and IPs of 24). So only 31 golf slots remain before the cap sets in. The Board needs to figure this our soon. Just saying.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousDecember 3, 2022 at 6:42 PM

      We voted to remove the 610 cap last spring. That means members can always sell with golf access, but we still need to figure out density.

      Delete
  2. AnonymousDecember 3, 2022 at 6:40 PM

    The comments on the deep dive are really old news - that work was completed and accepted by the full BOD and Finance Committee. It’s ironic how “transparency” is used here. My sense is Finance Committee members chose to get the details and facts, trimmed the bottoms up budgets, and then had the courage to tell the BOD why a 15% increase was appropriate this year. The alternative would be hide the facts, and cut costs to limit service levels without telling members …. Is that better?

    ReplyDelete

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