Howard Levine

 

Howard Levine

Candidate for Huntington Lakes Section 1 Board of Directors

 I’ve served on the board for the past two years as Treasurer and Chairman of the Building and Elevators Committee. I successfully supervised the 2020 audit and have been actively learning the Building and Elevator functions.  As a full-time resident of Huntington Lakes, I have a very strong interest in making sure that our community is well run with respect to providing the infrastructure and amenities we all want as cost-effectively as possible. We all want to enjoy living here and maintain our property values.

 I’ve served on other boards with buildings, staff, and membership responsibilities. I am familiar with the need to plan for building and grounds maintenance for an organization. These boards also worked through personnel issues including pay, hiring, and firing.

 In addition, I have an education allowing me to understand management issues and work to solve them. I have an MBA and a Public Policy Graduate Certificate (Post Masters). I read and understand financial statements, determine what drives costs for our association, understand and even calculate appropriate reserves for property maintenance, optimize operations, understand legal compliance issues, and help manage projects. As an Association Board member, I have done this even if other board members disagreed with me.

 Most of my career was in Information Technology. This required implementing big changes affecting a lot of people. I’ve always worked at being responsive to people affected by a change while implementing those changes. I would like that to be the standard operating procedure for the board.

 I am still concerned about the financial management of the association. Non-compliant budgets we’ve had during the past 5 years including the current one produce financial disasters like we experienced with the half million dollar deficit. Defective and deceptive budgeting also create funding shortages requiring special assessments which we had in 2022 and are needed even more in 2023. These special assessments are NOT caused by unpredictably large cost increases. They are caused by non-compliant, poorly constructed budgets and Condo 1 deficits. Although financial transparency has been promised and claimed by many board members, there has been none since the end of 2021. When a board violates budgeting rules, you cannot realistically expect financial transparency – and you are not getting it. Instead of holding back information, the board should clearly communicate the association’s financial situation so owners can realistically plan ahead financially to meet their condo obligations with as little disruption to their personal finances as possible. Getting surprised by special assessments due to either incompetent or deceptive budgeting is not respectful to owners and exposes them to additional financial stress and costs. Anyone on the board during the past 5 years who voted in favor of any budget has participated in presenting you a defective budget. You need to consider whether you want financial surprises and special assessments resulting from those votes when you cast your ballot for board members.

This is my home. I want to contribute to keeping it a great place to live. I would appreciate your vote for me as a director of our Condo Association.

 Get more information at https://honest-hl1.blogspot.com.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Board Critique

 Huntington Lakes Section 1 Association has been badly mismanaged. This is evidenced by deficits in Condo 1 and special assessments. Both indicate bad budgeting and poor financial planning. The purpose of this blog is to inform you of what is going on in your association based on verifiable facts instead of stories told by people who want to be on the board because they like running things their way. That is, without regard for the law, our by-laws, good accounting practices, good financial management, and respect for their fiduciary responsibility to owners. The deficit budgets we've had are illegal and against our by-laws. However, most board members don't care - they literally don't care even when informed of this. Instead of following the law, they seek questionable professional opinions to avoid following the law. These rules are designed to protect owners from boards financially ruining them. Breaking the law may seem like a good approach in the short run, but it lead...
Read more

Howard Laufer

  Howard Laufer (Building 7) Candidate for Huntington Lakes Section 1 Board of Directors Thank you for taking the time to read this short Bio about me and why I am asking for your vote to become your representative as a Board Member.   I used to live up north in Whitestone Queens NY.   I moved to Huntington Lakes several years ago mostly to look after my parents who live in Section 5.   It seems every day there is another doctor that they need to go to and I am glad that I am here and able to help them. Why Choose me: I believe my background in Construction and Building Maintenance will be an asset to both you and our Condo Board.   I have owned and operated several businesses throughout my career including a Burglar Alarm & Fire Alarm company, and Building Construction Companies.    I have had many employees and clients and I have learned how to treat people with respect.   I have extensive knowledge using computer programs like Word,...
Read more

Condo 1 was Borrowing about $60K from Condo 1A at end of 2022

 The cash balance for Condo 1 at the end of December 2022 was about -$60K. Yes, negative $60K. Thank you to the owners in Condo 1A for supplying money for Condo 1 operating expenses. The details can be found in this Excel file that shows separate balance sheets for the two condos calculated from the monthly financial report. Here is the cash summary: Total Condo 1 Condo 1A Current Assets Valley Account $ 351,426.35 $ (59,474.59) $ 410,900.94 Southstate Account $ 127.54 $ 127.54 $ - Total Current Assets $ 351,553.89 $ (59,347.05) $ 410,900.94 After the January 2023 maintenance payments, Condo 1 will have a positive balance again until March. The cash deficit will be even higher then since the 2023 budget was done poorly and doesn't cover expenses. Of course, we won't see the March 2023 financial report until April 20,2023 which is well after the board election. Then the current board members who voted for the budget will, if reelected, probably be shocked and surprised at the u...
Read more