2023 Budget Review
I was reviewing the 2023 budget and saw the $56,148 spent on the roof over the recycling area and had a few questions for the board.
In the meeting notes from 2/20/23 it states:
"Requests for bids have been posted on 4 local social media groups."
"Have received 1 bid to date, which is higher than projected."
Then on 5/15/23 it states:
"Mt. Baker Construction is being used to re install all the existing fencing that was
removed by in house staff."
I wanted to clarify which company won the project bid. As Todd Schuh is not only on the board but also the head of Capital Projects currently and also owner of Mt. Baker Construction. I wanted to be sure we have not opened up liability to a major conflict of interest of a board member. I do not see any mention of recusal of voting on bid acceptance from Mr. Schuh in the board meeting minutes.
Thank you!
This year's IT budget includes a number of new expenses as well as increases in existing line items. There is zero budgeted outsourcing costs, all development effort is done internally via volunteers. There is a fair amount of effort related to IT within Snowline. Given new working dynamics, more and more business is conducted virtually. As a result, a fair amount of buildout has and needs to be done. We plan to extend the network via a point to multipoint bridge. This will allow us to extend wifi to the shop with the potential connecting the gate system to the Snowline network. Business email has been adopted for all Snowline mailboxes. Snowline has two ISPs - Ziply & Starlink with both being needed due to limitations of both. Snowline's website is WIX based and costing includes Wix subscription, Wix plugins, cloud storage, domain registrations. Snowline is moving to Quick Books Online to improve integration and automation.
Some additional equipment is also required. We will be adding a weather station to the clubhouse. We will be adding some IP video cameras integrated with the network. Equipment is needed to extend the network bridge to the Shop. This will provide wifi within the shop and potentially allow connection of the gate system to the overall network. Additional gear is needed virtual hosting of monthly board meetings as well as streaming of the AGM.
To recap, there is zero outsourcing costs. All development effort is done via volunteers. This includes all network design / deployment as well as all website development. A significant upcoming development effort will be the creation of a membership database.
Below is a list of top ticket items.
Business email: $1,200
ISP (Ziply & Starlink): $3,200
Website (hosting, plugins, domain, cloud storage): $1,500
Quick Books Online: $1,200
Weather Station: $750
Network gear: $1,000
IP Cameras (5): $1,000
Video storage: $350
Board room / AGM Zoom gear: $600
Total: $10,800
Unexpected: $1,200 ($600 gear/sw, $50 / month subscription)
Total: $12,000
From a categorization standpoint, these costs can be categorized into two groups: annual run rate costs, one time costs.
The annual / monthly subscriptions are annual recurring costs. These for the majority of the costs and include:
Email
Website
ISP
Quick Books Online
Total: $7,200
Note, if we are able to reliably move to one of the two ISPs, we could eliminate the second ISP, but right now that's not feasible.
The one time costs are mostly for equipment and include:
Weather station
Network gear
IP cameras & local storage
Board room / AGM gear
Total: $3,700
Coming out of this next year, I would only expect periodic equipment upgrades as needed.
I would expect next year's IT budget to drop down to $8,000
I agree with the feedback; given the significant increase in costing, I should have provided context on the increase and included a breakout of the line item. This is on me and apologies.
Also, apologies on the delay in responding, squeezing this in between work and life.