Recommended Amount for Reserve Funds.

Can any one direct me to a site where I may find out how much the Reserve Funds should?
We have 97 units in an 8 story high rise 23 years old and our annual budget for income from Maintenace Fees this year is $418,000.00.
In the past three years we have spent $931,000 (paid for with special assesments) on all big ticket items---Drives, Elevator, New Roof, Parking Deck Renewed, and Building steam-cleaned and sealed. None of the preceeding are anticipated to be required in the next 20 years. (The work done was the first to ever be done on the building).
I would appreciate any replies or recommendations. Our current reserve funds have an aggregate of $240,000 in them. We have two factions---one wants to increase the reserves by $ 90,000 per year so that there will never be any more Special Assessments----the other says we have paid for all these improvements in the last 3 years---why should we pay for them twice.

Build the reserves to avoid any future special assessments.

The reason your dues have increased so much in the past three years is due to the lack of planning for the future. Without a reserve study and reserve fund, the only way to pay for large repairs is a special assessment (which no one likes)or to get a loan which will increase the dues to pay the monthly payments for the life of the loan.

Your association should acquire a reserve study ASAP so that it can start planning for the future. Does your association have an initiation fee? This is something we just implemented and will go to build our reserve funds instead of having to increase assessments each year.

For the first five years of our neighborhood, we did not have a reserve study or reserve fund and the managment company hired by the past board said we did not need one. So now we are trying to make up for lost time as some major repairs are headed our way very soon.