Greetings from the Board
A few people have asked me about the 2025 budget and the reason for the dues increase and after my explanation, encouraged me to “put it in writing” and send it out to our members.
We approved the budget for 2025 for VCA and for Siena at the October Board meeting (both are available on the VCA website under the “Your VCA” heading at the top of the page.
In order to have a balanced budget (operating revenue equals operating expenses) and add a 5th staff member (we ‘ve added around 2,000 houses since we last increased the number of staff positions), we had to increase the dues from $95 per quarter to $103 per quarter. If you are on autopay, please remember to update your account with the new dues number.
Our total operating expenses for 2025 are projected to be $2,809,208 and the two biggest items are landscaping $1,446,470 and administrative $1,015,113 (of which salaries and benefits are $399,960). Remember we have over 6,000 homes and over 60 commercial members in Rancho Vistoso.
The budget is divided into Operating (which I described above) and the Reserve Fund. The reserve fund will receive a transfer of $850,000 from, the operating funds and $150,000 in earned interest for a total of $1 million. The budget calls for spending $1,119,900 out of our reserve fund. Significant increases are the drainage mitigation in the reserve increased from $60,000 to $365,000 as we believe we will finally be able to fix one of our 3 biggest erosion projects in 2025. The Town of Oro Valley and the developer of Rancho Vistoso made the HOA responsible for maintenance of these washes (long ago) and we must fix the deterioration and erosion issues. The washes channel the storm water down to the CDO wash and most of the HOA’s in Oro Valley have the same financial responsibility for maintenance.
We also allocated $250,000 to take down the streetlights on Rancho Vistoso Blvd (except for the Sun City lights that are the Town of Oro Valley, not ours) that will remove the long-term liability of those lights and save us approximately $35,000 per year in electricity. We discussed the options on those streetlights for 3 years, gathering survey results, investigating costs and the vast majority of our members said, “take them down”.
The Rancho Vistoso HOA is a $3.5 million per year business and the volunteer board and the committees are working hard on your behalf. Please consider lending a helping hand and sign up for a committee or run for the Board. If you wish to contact the board, please send an email to: [email protected]
Matt Wood