Series 2000 – Business Management

Title

2020 – Bid Requirements
2030 – Purchasing: Relations with Vendors
2040 – Reserve Fund and Investments
2050 – Record Retention and Destruction

Policy                          2020
Adoption:      May 23, 2011
Amended:      Mar 16, 2015

BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

Bid Requirements

Whenever in the opinion of the Board the cost of any supplies, equipment or work shall exceed $5,000, clear and definite specifications shall be prepared and made available to all vendors interested in submitting a quote/bid.

The Chairperson may solicit bids by telephone and/or written quotation for furniture, equipment and supplies which have an estimated cost of less than $5,000.  At least three telephone or written bids shall be secured prior to the date established by the Board.   All telephone quotations must be confirmed in writing within seven days in order to constitute a valid quotation.

When the cost of any supplies, equipment or work shall exceed $5,000 but less than $7,500, informal quotes shall be solicited from responsible vendors.

On projects estimated to cost more than $7,500, the Association shall secure written quotes and may utilize a payment and performance bond requirement and retainage requirements.

For purposes of this procedure, a lease-purchase agreement, whereby the Association may own the property at the end of a lease term, shall be subject to the same conditions as an outright purchase.

The Board may by resolution reject any and all bids and make further calls for bids in the same manner as the original call.  The Board reserves the right to purchase through an inter-local cooperative agreement with a governmental agency provided such agency has complied with applicable bidding requirements.

The following procedures shall be in effect for purchasing through the bidding process:

A.  Formal bids shall be opened at the time and place stated in the advertisement for bids, and any interested member of the public may attend the bid opening. It shall be the bidder’s sole responsibility to see his/her bid is delivered to the Association prior to the time set for opening of bids.  Any bid received after the time set for opening the bids shall be returned to the bidder unopened and shall receive no consideration by the Association.

B.  Formal bid tabulations shall be presented at the next regular meeting of the Board for study purposes.

C.  Formal bid awards may be made by the Board on the basis of committee recommendations at the second meeting after the bid opening except the Board can waive this requirement when time is of the essence.

D.  The Association shall reserve the right to reject any or all bids and make the award in its best interest.

E.  The following factors shall be considered in determining the lowest responsible bidder:

1.  The ability, capacity and skill of bidder to perform the work required;
2.  The character, integrity, reputation, judgment, experience, and efficiency of the bidder;
3.  The ability of the low bidder to perform the work in the time specified;
4.  The quality of performance of previous contracts or services;
5.  The previous and existing compliance of the bidder with laws relating to public works; and such other information related to the performance of the contract as the Board deems advisable.

Policy                           2030
Adoption:       May 23, 2011
Reviewed:      Mar 16, 2015

Purchasing: Relations with Vendors

Financial and business transactions of the Association shall be carried out in conformity with the law and consistent with sound and ethical business practices.

Purchasing decisions shall be made on the basis of objectivity and shall not be influenced by friendships or other personal relationships. Board members or staff shall not accept a gift or favor from vendors or prospective vendors or other firms or individuals who have had or hope to have transactions with the Association. Financial interests of Board members or staff in any Association purchase, sale or other transaction shall be prohibited.

Policy                          2040
Adoption:       Nov 21, 2011
Reviewed:      Mar 16, 2015

Reserve Fund and Investments

A Reserve Fund will be established and consist of:
● Any monies collected from fines
● Investment monies from CDs
● Annual carry over funds

The Reserve Fund minimum is to be equal to one year of collected annual dues. Until such time as this level is reached, the Board of Directors will allocate in the annual budget monies to the Reserve Fund.

Investment of reserve funds will be effected by the Board, using the collective best judgment of the Board members, however, the following guidelines will be observed:

A.  No funds will be invested in stocks, bonds, or real estate or in any other venture that is in any way speculative.

B.  Funds will be invested at local financial institutions, in certificates of deposit, money market accounts, and/or savings accounts that are fully insured by a U.S. Government agency (e.g. FDIC/SIPC/FSLIC) and offers reasonably competitive interest rates.

C.  Investments will be scheduled in such a way that maturity dates are staggered to facilitate liquidity at any given period to the extent it is feasible to do so, without incurring withdrawal penalties.

D.  Sufficient funds will be retained in cash/money market account (s) to enable the funding of reasonably foreseeable expenses during the periods between investment maturity dates. To this end, maturing CD’s shall not be automatically reinvested, but will be the subject of Board review.

E.  Any expenditure from the Reserve Fund will require the action of the Board of Directors.

Policy                          2050
Adoption:       March 16, 2015

 Records Retention & Disposal

Pleasant View Home Owners Association (PV HOA) takes seriously its obligations to preserve information relating to litigation, audits, and investigations.  Whenever the association disposes of records, it must ensure the records are completely destroyed, preferably by shredding or incineration.

No paper or electronic documents shall be destroyed or deleted if pertinent to any ongoing or anticipated government investigation or proceeding or private litigation (check with legal counsel for any current or foreseen litigation).

No paper or electronic documents will be destroyed or deleted if required to comply with government auditing standards (Single Audit Act).

All electronic documents will be deleted from all individual computers, data bases, networks, and back-up storage after one year.

From time to time, the Board Chairperson may issue a notice, known as a “Litigation Hold,” suspending the destruction of records due to pending, threatened, or otherwise reasonably foreseeable litigation, audits, government investigations, or similar proceedings.  No records specified in any legal hold may be destroyed, even if the scheduled destruction date has passed, until the legal hold is withdrawn in writing by the President.

Information listed in the retention schedule below is intended as a guideline and may not contain all the records the association may be required to keep in the future.  Questions regarding the retention of documents not listed in this chart should be directed to the Board Chairperson.

Permanent

1. 1. Governing Documents
      • Conditions, Covenants & Restrictions
      • Articles of Incorporation
      • Bylaws
      • Parcel Map
   2. Minutes
      • Board and membership meetings
      • Committees with decision-making authority
      • Board Resolutions
   3. Deeds to Property Owned by the Association
      • Purchases
      • Mortgages
      • Bills of sale
   4. Architectural Plans for common areas

5. Accounting Records
   • Business Licenses
   • Chart of Accounts
   • Fixed Asset Records and depreciation schedules
   • Year-end financial statements
   • Tax Returns
6. Home Owner Records
7. Insurance Records
8. IRS Exemption determination and related correspondence
9. Real Property
   • Construction contracts and records
   • Leaseholder improvements
   • Real estate purchases

1. Seven Years
   1. Administration records
      • Equipment files and maintenance records (Life + 7 years)
      • Leases (Life + 7 years)
   2. Closed Litigation Files (Life + 7 years)
   3. Expired Warranties
   4. Financial Records
      • Auditor management letters
      • Audited Finance Statements
      • Bank records, deposits, check register and cancelled checks
      • Budgets
      • Contracts and agreement (Life + 7 years)
      • General ledgers and subsidiary journals and reconciliation
      • Payroll records
      • Invoices from vendors
   5. Human Resources
      • Employee personnel files (Life + 7 years
      • Employee handbooks
      • Worker Comp claims
      • Employee orientation and training
   6. Inventory records
   7. Insurance Records
      • Accident reports
      • Certificate of insurance
      • Expired policies
      • Fidelity bonds
      • Settled claims
   8. IRS Tax Returns/Forms
   9. Owner architectural submittals
   10. Software licenses and support agreements (Life + 7 years)

Three years

1. Bank deposit slips
2. Bank Reconciliations
3. Employment Applications
4. Employee Timecards
5. General Correspondence
6. IRS Form I-9 (store separate from personnel file) (Greater of Life + 1 year or 3 years)
7. Petty cash vouchers
8. Purchase orders
9. Newsletters
10. Board Conflict-of-interest disclosure forms

1. One Year

Voting Ballots

Electronic documents will be retained as if they were paper documents.  Therefore, any electronic files which fall into one of the document types on the above schedule will be maintained for the appropriate amount of time.  If a user has sufficient reason to keep an e-mail message, the message should be printed in hard copy and kept in the appropriate file or moved to an “archive” computer file folder. Backup and recovery methods will be tested on a regular basis.

Association records will be stored in a safe, secure, and accessible manner.  Documents and financial files that are essential to keeping the association operating in an emergency will be duplicated or backed up at least weekly and maintained off-site.

The Chairperson is responsible for the ongoing process of identifying its records, which have met the required retention period, and overseeing their destruction.  Destruction of financial and personnel-related documents will be accomplished by shredding.

Document destruction will be suspended immediately, upon any indication of an official investigation or when a lawsuit is filed or appears imminent.  Destruction will be reinstated upon conclusion of the investigation.

The Board Chair will periodically review these procedures with legal counsel or the association’s certified public accountant to ensure they are in compliance with new or revised regulations.

The IRS has issued guidelines for retaining computerized records. PVHOA must be able to produce legible records that reconcile financial books and tax returns.  Machine-sensible records must be readily retrievable and contain sufficient transaction-level detail to identify any source documents.

Current records will come into compliance effective January 1, 2016.