Maintaining Financial Security for a Growing Community
Development & Real Estate
Since July 2020, 40 new homes were completed and sold in Issaquah Highlands, and 165 homes are still under construction, bringing the total of resident-owned units to 3,402. When combined with 958 rental units and additional builder-owned units, our community is at 99% of “Total Allowable Residential.” There were also 228 resales in the past year.
Annual Audit
We have completed another year with a “clean” audit (unqualified opinion) while maintaining strong controls over the accounting environment. By providing complete and accurate audit schedules to our auditors, we keep our audit fees low and our auditors happy.
Investments
We analyze our cash deposit positions persistently to attain the highest interest yield while maintaining 100% Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) insurance on all our deposits. Our interest income for 2020-2021 is estimated to be $36,000, which is about $30,000 less than last year due to reduced interest rates. We have a very effective CD purchase program with our bank, enabling us to be efficient with cash management while receiving very competitive CD interest rates compared to other banks. Our master reserves remain funded at 113%, a phenomenal achievement.
Master Assessments
Master assessments for the upcoming 2021-2022 fiscal year will increase by $1 per month to $948 annually. This is the first increase since the 2018-2019 fiscal year and was needed to cover increasing costs for our aging community.
We continue to encourage participation in the monthly auto-debit payment (ACH) program for collecting assessments, in which 86% of our homeowners participate. This keeps our cash flow even throughout the year and our delinquencies low at a rate of 1.5%.
How We Do It
The community managers and the accounting manager work tirelessly for months to create the budgets for 14 supplemental neighborhoods and the master community. Many of the budgets have a high level of complexity; community managers spend countless hours researching and reviewing costs to ensure the numbers are accurate and fair to all homeowners in the community. These budgets are then reviewed and approved by the Issaquah Highlands Community Association (IHCA) Finance Committee and IHCA Board of Directors.
We want to thank the resident volunteers who serve on the Finance Committee and the board for their support throughout the year. The Finance Committee meets on the second Tuesday of each month at 5:30 p.m. The board meets every fourth Monday at 5:30 p.m. All meetings are open to the public. Find more details at issaquahhighlands.com/events or on the IHCA mobile app.
Kristyn McKinnon is the IHCA accounting manager.
