Chrissy's Views

Depending on the size of your community, and the overall size of the company that owns the community, the number of people involved in creating a budget can vary from one to as many as ten or more. And, if there is a board of directors who must approve the final product, their input, while not used in the actual creation of the budget, might change the final product.

In the situation where the community is owned by a sole proprietor, it will be that person who creates the budget, since it is probably a rather small community and most likely an owner/operator situation.

A little larger situation might be where it was a partnership or corporation of some type that owns the community. In this instance, it would probably be an absentee owner with an onsite community manager. Depending on the relationship between the two, the tenure of the community manager, and the openness of the owners, the budget creation varies. Some of these situations do not actively involve the community manager in reviewing the financial statements, making active decisions about purchases or capital improvements, or even knowing the financial goals of the community. In those cases, it is back to the owner to create the budget. If, however, the community manager is involved in the financial end (reviewing, making decisions, etc.) then they should be at least somewhat involved in the budget creation process.

In larger communities where there is a maintenance supervisor who has a fairly good sized staff (three or more plus the supervisor) it is another opportunity to get one more person involved in helping put good information into the budget process.

In a typical property management company, there are regional managers who also work with the budget creation. A regional manager may supervise as many as 15 or more community managers. By working together, and getting input from onsite staff when applicable, the budget is more accurate, better understood, and becomes a more effective tool.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 15th, 2010 at 6:47 am and is filed under Community Finances, Manufactured Home Community Management, Maximizing Income, MHC Investment, Mobile Home Park Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.