[Goldwingnut]

Once again that other web site had demonstrated its ability to selectively edit facts in an attempt to create outrage amongst the residents of The Villages.

It’s time to look at the numbers that are being discussed. Let’s start with District 12 as it appears to be the target of most of the badmouthing.

District 12 last year consisted mainly of the Village of Fenney last year and had a contribution to the project wide fund of $604,084, this year Phase 2 of District 12 was included in the budget doubling the size of the district and increasing their contribution to $1,744,088, an increase of $1,140,002. While this is a substantial increase (189%) it also makes since as there is more property going to be maintained, as they have more property they have more costs and will pay more.

The Project Wide budget for next fiscal year went up $1,937,808 over the current fiscal year of this District 12’s increased costs and contribution was $1,140,002 or a net increase of $797,806 to be distributed among districts 5 through 11, Brownwood, and Lake Sumter Landing.

This other $800K of increase is what is having to be absorbed by the other districts as an increase, well, almost. There is an additional $754,581 that needs to be added to this $797,806 bringing the total to $1,552,387. The $754,581 was Project Wide Working Capital funds that were used this fiscal year to fund the budget as the working capital budget was over funded. It was determined to be better to not to increase assessments to the districts (and residents) last year with this fund being over funded and instead draw the fund down by supplementing the budget. So, we all dodged the bullet last year for maintenance assessment increase because the working capital budget had been building up over the last few years. The excesses are now back in line and it’s time to pay bills.

This $1.55M in increases is with needs to be understood. There are two major sources of this increase: 1) contracted services increases and 2) increased maintenance costs.

The contracted services are the biggest increase and includes all the services that are not self-executed by the District staff – landscaping maintenance, villa road maintenance, irrigation system maintenance, pond maintenance, tree maintenance, the list is many and numerous – all of these services have had substantial increases. All of these services are competitively bid and, in most cases, contracts are awarded based on lowest price. There are many reasons why these costs have gone up but the bottom line is that the businesses that perform this work are not charities and must make a profit to survive, if their costs go up, their prices go up, we have to pay the increases.

The increased maintenance cost is, while it seems redundant of above is a different issue, the result of the districts aging and infrastructures needing higher levels of maintenance and replacement due to age. The Capital Improvement Plan covers these items and is project to be $280K. This cost will continue to increase annually as the areas south of CR466 continue to age.

District 12 is also paying a part of these increases, of the $1,140K increase they are paying next fiscal year, about $236K of this increase is their portion of these cost increases.

Yes, the District 12 budget increased significantly but it is not the cause of the increases that the individual districts are seeing. In fact, the additional acreage added to District 12 results in a lower cost to each of the districts because of the way these costs are distributed. Each district has a fixed acreage that represents a percentage of the total acreage, District 12’s additional acreage increases the total and decreases the other district’s percentage of the whole. This happened previously when District 11 (Fruitland Park area) was added.

As for the comment of the money set aside for the island revetment work, the other web site’s statement makes this sound a nefarious undertaking by PWAC, it is far from that. PWAC has been anticipating this cost and has been setting aside funds to cover the work. Until the true costs are known – the $1.7M frequently mentioned is an engineering estimate not a firm price – these funds will continue to be held in reserve. I don’t want to delve further into this topic now as it is complex and lots of misinformation is flying about.

The budgeting process and operation of The Villages as a community is extremely complex and each budget and entity is different from the others. For those residents and Supervisors that are “concerned” or “troubled” or that may want “tougher scrutiny” of the Project Wide and Amenities budgets I would suggest educating yourselves by attending the monthly meetings and annual budget workshops that occur and are open to the public for examination, comments, and input. All the information is there for the asking.

And for those that love to get on the “the developer needs to pay more” bandwagon, they are. Almost the entire increase in the District 12 budget and project wide assessment associated with Phase 2 of District 12 (about $1.6M) is paid by the developer. Phase 2 of District 12 includes the Villages of McClure, Marsh Bend, De Luna, Linden, and Monarch Grove, which if you have been watching my drone videos, are still very much under construction. They will continue to pay the annual maintenance assessment on each home until it is sold, built or not.

Just for informational purposes, Districts 9 and 12 are nearly identical in size and have similar project wide assessments. Last year Districts 12 was about the same size as 11 and paid a similar assessment to the project wide funding. All of the numbers and information I have given here are available for everyone to review on the districtgov.org web site.

As for that other site, its articles are frequently yellow journalism at its lowest level with sensualism being an obvious part of their business model in order to drive web traffic and their profits. It is sad that they have chosen to take the route of maligning the community, developer, and the residents that they so often do when a much better service would be to educate and inform, but then I guess there is little to be made that way.

My fellow residents I urge you all to educate yourselves and try to understand how this unique and incredible community we all live in works and functions, this is the purpose of many of my posts. If we leave it up to those that shout the loudest about every little thing, then that mob rule mentality will surely ruin both this community and our retirements.