2026-27 MCA Budgets have BIG assumptions and errors

As always, if there are any errors in this information please let us know and we will correct them.

At the recent MCA Board meeting, the Board passed by a 6-3 majority TWO budgets: One without a deal with Benderson Development and one with a deal.

The budget was passed without ANY discussion, even though the President said there would be a budget presentation. It passed so quickly that one of the directors who voted for it didn’t even realize they’d approved it, and much later asked “when are we going to discuss the budget?”.

The status quo budget

Total Homeowner Assessments are budgeted to increase 13.7%. This is a very simple calculation, but for some reason the Treasurer refused to acknowledge the number. (Don’t be distracted by references to property assessments – Footnote 1). However, this large increase is only because of bad budget assumptions and choices. Without the two items below, no increase in assessments would be necessary.

The budget for golf revenue is low by more than $1 million

The MCA has budgeted for a loss of $1.5 million from golf operations ($950,000 of revenue vs $2.45 million of expenses). The assumption of only $950,000 of revenue is less than half of what it should be. Here are 3 indicators:

In 2024 TMCC generated $2.1 million of public green fees. That was across two courses but the number of rounds could be handled by one course, and the Meadows course is much better quality than the Highlands or Groves, so it would attract more golfers at a higher rate.

In 2024 TMCC generated $920,000 just from cart fees (about $30/round) from TMCC members.

In the last 3 weeks, MCA generated green fees at a rate which would achieve $950,000 over the year, despite being only open a few hours a day and to Homeowners only. The only public play is on Friday and limited to a specific group at a discounted rate. If the course was open to normal public play for the entire day, obviously revenues could be more than double with very minimal increases in costs.

If operated properly and open to the public, golf operations would be highly profitable over the next five months and break-even for the year. So why budget for a $1.5 million loss which accounts for more than double the budgeted increase in assessments? It facilitates a narrative that we will incur a BIG loss if we don’t do the deal with Benderson Development.  

We are spending accumulated past profits this year

The MCA has about $1 million of cash available as a cushion for unexpected events. This is “profit” accumulated over its 50 years of existence. The MCA will now be spending $750,000 of that on this year’s operating expenses. This will only leave about $250,000 cushion which leaves us in a dangerous position because our Replacement Fund is drastically underfunded (by about $5.4 million per data in the 2023 Reserve Study (Footnote 2).

If our debt is transferred to Benderson Development that could “free up” the $1 million on deposit (Footnote 3) which would increase our cushion but that doesn’t mean this should immediately be spent on operations. Again, our Replacement Fund is in desperate need of actual funds for our 50 year old infrastructure.

Spending accumulated profits/equity for normal operations is HIGHLY unusual, and usually only done when an organization is in financial difficulty. That’s what TMCC did for many years prior to 2018 when there was no more left to spend. We are not in any sort of financial difficulty. Wasting 50 years of accumulated profit for about $200/home of assessment relief for 1 year is not prudent financial management.

The “with lease” budget

The budget motion also included a provision to change the budget if the deal with Benderson Development is completed by Dec 29. Only 3 Board members know anything about how such a deal would affect the MCA budget, but another 3 Board members were still willing to approve it without that knowledge. Director Alex Peake proposed an amendment to defer changes to the budget until the Board knew the deal terms. The Treasurer called for an immediate vote on the amendment before there could be any discussion and the amendment was not approved by 3-6.

Makes a BIG assumption on future events

The “with lease” budget includes an assumption that our debt service costs will go down by $750,000. BUT we won’t know if our debt will be reduced until up to 9 months after the deal is signed (Per the President’s comments Benderson Development will have 9 months to decide on the CE’s). That means we would not know until more than halfway through the fiscal year whether the reduction will happen, but this budget assumes it does happen.

If Benderson Development does not acquire the CE’s and reduce our debt to them, we will have a $750,000 budget shortfall.

Even if it does come to pass, the timing may mean that between the higher loan payments to the bank for 7 months and then lower payments to Benderson Development for the remainder of the year, it is not possible to reduce payments by $750,000. We estimate this would cause a budget shortfall of at least $160,000 (the President did not mention the lending aspect of the tentative deal, so this scenario can’t be definitively analyzed). 

Includes $499,000 to spend on Center Court Lounge

The “with lease” budget adds a significant spend on CCL. This was passed without discussion, and later comments did not specify what it was for.

Despite comments from the 3 Officers that the MCA’s scope/mission is limited and it should not be in the golf business (we agree), it appears that their vision is that the MCA is going to be in the restaurant business by operating CCL. The restaurant business is a VERY tough business, especially in a small private community, and it was the source of substantial TMCC losses every year.

We understand some homeowners’ affection for having a restaurant in that location, but it would be a big risk for MCA to be operating it rather than a third party restaurateur.

Includes two BIG accounting errors

 This is a little difficult to explain to non-accountants but has been verified by two CPAs.

$1.9 million error

The “with lease” budget has an adjustment for lost golf revenue of $950,000. But it was subtracted rather than added in the calculations. So the calculation is off by: $950,000 x 2 = $1.9 million. That results in a $1.9 million “hole” in this budget.  

$2.6 million error

In the re-calculation of the “with lease” assessment requirements, the calculations erroneously make adjustments to Total Income/Expense rather than adjusting Assessment Income. This error resulted in overstating the required/billed Assessment Income by $2.6 million.

The net of these two errors is that the budgeted “with lease” Homeowners will be billed for $665,800 MORE THAN THEY NEED TO BE as demonstrated in this spreadsheet.

These errors were pointed out to the Board before they passed the budget. An amendment was proposed to delay the decision on the “with lease” paragraph of the budget so the issues could be understood. But the Treasurer denied the errors and cut off any chance for discussion by calling for an immediate vote on the amendment (defeated 3-6). 

Does not include any lease income

The President indicated that Benderson Development would pay MCA $50,000 per year. That was not included in the “with lease” budget adjustments. The amount isn’t big but it is a really obvious oversight.

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So that is what the Board approved (6-3) and that is what we have for the next year under each scenario. There are lots of other items worth of scrutiny but those are the big items we have noted so far.

It is worth noting that there is only one person with real financial expertise on the Finance Committee whose membership was determined solely by the current Treasurer. There were 4 homeowners with real financial expertise appointed by the Board in March but all were later removed by the President and Treasurer.

Join the “For The Meadows” owners-only Facebook group to discuss MCA governance and operations.

Footnote 1

Total Homeowner Assessments are the amount required from Homeowners to fund the MCA operations for the year. It is the net of all expenses, purchases and loan repayments, less other sources of income. 99.99% of the budgeting effort goes into estimating these items for the next year. Last year our total assessments were $5.1 million. This year they will be $5.8 million. That is a 13.7% increase in total and so the average homeowner increase will be 13.7%.

AFTER the budget has been calculated, there are some straight-forward calculations using our property assessments to allocate that $5.8 million across 3,500 homes. Because our individual property assessments vary in different ways from year to year (largely based on when you purchased and whether you are a Florida Homesteader), our individual assessments may be more or less than 13.7%. This is used by some as a way of creating confusion and distracting homeowners from the big picture.

Make no mistake: This budget calls fro MCA Homeowners to pay 13.7% more in total and on average.

Footnote 2

The 2023 Reserve Study indicated a Replacement Fund deficit of $2.0 million, BUT that was based on an erroneous assumption that the MCA already had $4 million in the Replacement Fund (to be clear, the author would have been provided the erroneous amount by the MCA and the author states that they did not audit or check that number). As of Feb 28 2025 the MCA only had $618,000 in the Replacement Fund . If the Study author had used $618,000 as the Replacement Fund balance the deficit would have been calculated as $5.4 million.

Footnote 3

Our loan agreements with Centennial Bank (negotiated by our current Treasurer) require us to have $1 million on deposit with them (initially at no interest, and now at minimal interest). So effectively we give them $1 million which they lend back to us at a much higher interest rate.

If our debt is transferred to Benderson Development this amount would no longer be on deposit and can be used by MCA for other purposes (like the Replacement Reserve).