Ladies of LAC Discussion

It should be noted that any Mandatory or Incentivized training would require some kind of administrative services for tracking purposes and/or enforcement and these services will come with a cost. So, as you can see, this is a very complex issue with many aspects to consider. Dawn Bauman from CAI National provided information on the Public Policy regarding board member education and on other states that are creating legislation dealing with this idea. To simplify, CAI’s Public Policy is as follows: “While CAI realizes the importance of education for all governing board members, state mandated requirements deserve careful evaluation by legislative action committees. Any state mandated education requirement should focus on incentives and tools to encourage boards to utilize existing industry tools to achieve education goals rather than create new processes or burdens.” Board members should receive education on ethics and leadership, financials and reserves, insurance and risk management, rules creation and enforcement, meetings and elections, communication, conflict resolution and community building. Board members should attest to comply with CAI’s Model Code for Ethics for Community Association Board members. Over the span of many months, various calls to set up meetings with Assemblywoman Quijano were unsuccessful. Sometime last year we learned that she plans to move forward with a bill requiring mandatory training for board members and we are still trying to meet with her to discuss CAI National’s position on this. At the January NJ LAC meeting, a subcommittee of volunteers was formed to try to get this back on track. In an effort to facilitate a smoother transition process for Community Associations, the New Jersey Builders Association (NJBA) and members of the Community Associations Institute New Jersey (CAI-NJ) Legislative Action Committee (LAC) formed a Task Force on Transition in 2017. The goal of the Task Force was to propose to the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs (DCA) suggested amendments to N.J.A.C. 5:26-8.6 (Assessments for Common Expenses and N.J.A.C. 5:26-8.7 (Budgets) of the Planned Real Estate Development Full Disclosure Act (PREDFDA) governing Community Associations that are mutually beneficial to community associations and the developers who build them. Often transition disputes regarding reserve funding and benefits derived are based on “interpretations” of the Regulations and could be resolved if the language were more clearly defined. So, the members of the Task Force set out to come to an agreement on more specific language to better define the ambiguous items. In order to accomplish this, the Task Force met several times including meetings with representatives of DCA. A letter was sent to the DCA detailing the joint recommended amendments and we received a response from them in February 2019. Comments were sent back to DCA and then the regulation writers were supposed to prepare the final language. After that step the regulations are sent up to the Governor for review. The regulations were published for comment and a response was sent back by the members of the Task Force. We are now waiting on an update from DCA. Nearing the final stage, only four years later! Adequate Reserves and Benefits Derived

Just a few highlights are:

5:26-8.6 Assessments for Common Expenses, Working Capital to be collected from members upon acquisition of title shall be used for: - one-time expenses for startup operations - unforeseen expenses in lieu of a special assessment