Community Supervisor Job Description

We have approximately 500 single-family homes in our subdivision. Currently, we have a gentleman that has a contract for the Lawncare side for the last 8 years (with automatic 3% increase a year). He is also 'acting' Community Supervisor but there is no signed contract. The previous board from 2004 neglected to have it signed. This gentleman, let's call him John, was a previous board member and due to complaints from the community regarding conflict of interest, went off the board in order to continue Lawncare and Supervisor of the community. He still attends every board meeting and has a voice in everything that happens.

I'm new to the board and the conflicts of interest is killing me. Not only that there has not been one single bid for either of these positions. We've had several 'mal-contents' from the community, as John calls them make a huge fuss so the President created a Budget Committee which I head up. Unfortunately, there are still 2 board members (President and VP) that are friends with John and refuse to move to bidding any of these contracts. Both of these individuals are hoping it will all just go away until they resign from the board within the next year or two because they are hoping to move.

Long post. Sorry. The Budget Committee is moving forward to do what we can. With that in mind, we've redesigned the Lawncare Contract and plan to request sealed bids. John will be allowed to bid as well.

We are also designing a new Community Supervisor Contract. Here are some of the items:

Oversee Lawncare Company and Pool Contractor
Routine Maintenance of Pool House, Bridges, Signs and Sign Posts, Mailboxes etc
Tree Cutting, Pruning, removal
Oversee Irrigation System
Seasonal Lights, etc
Architectural Approvals
Attend City/County Meetings
Available 24/7 for emergencies

NOW THE QUESTION: Does anyone have a person on-site that is paid to do these sort of things? If so, what does the job description or contract look like? If you do not have a person on staff to do these items, who gets the bids, makes certain the job gets done, checks the invoice, etc.

Many thanks for your feedback.

Mark,

While a small group, 5 Board member control the affairs of the Association, sometimes a smaller group of indivdual(s) act as watchdogs for the community. Our Association just finished voting on amending our Bylaws to eliminating the need for quorum all meetings of Member (Annual or Special). This only effects the elections of Director as the other items listed to vote by secret ballot have much higher thresholds. The other two major changes were the ability to remove a single Director, where the old Bylaws, because of the provisions for the builder, you had to remove the whole Board and we place qualifications for the Directors.

If as homeowners you see that the Association is not being run correctly and according to your governing docs, have them removed or vote them out. Under most conditions, because of quorum requirements, this become a very daunting task.

Mark,

I'm not sure how we got to where we are where the board never bid out major items. I suspect it's from community apathy which I must admit I was a part of for too long. I had no clue who the board members were and what they voted on from month to month. I did not even hardly attend the annual meetings and I've lived here 9 years. Pretty sad I know. I finally got to the point in my thinking that instead of being part of the problem and just complain I needed to be part of the solution so I volunteered as an alternate. That basically means that I attend all the monthly meetings (and email dialogue) and can voice my opinion but do not have a vote. I did that for a year. The next year I was voted on the board and became Tresurer, because no one else wanted this position.

I, fortunately, or unfortunately, take that position seriously. I started advocating getting copies of the contracts which was a difficult thing to do, the deeper I got the more 'John' dug in and say I was attacking his integrity which is not what I was trying to do. I believe in procedures and having expectations on paper and I believe in bidding jobs out. It's been a hard year.

We currently pay $100,000 for lawncare and probably $15,000 for Supervisor to the same person. Oh yeah, the 'Supervisor' gets paid for any projects that need completed, maintenance or otherwise. He has the option to bid out to other companies but can keep the work himself. The thought is when we finally get this out to bid the Lawncare contract will be much less but the Supervisor role will increase. That's where we are. What a mess....

That's the problem. We don't have 100's of acres to mow. We've got a previous board that setup a previous board member for life.