Budget season is here – for community association boards and managers across Ohio, the late-summer and early-fall months are when next year’s operating budget takes shape. Line items get reviewed. Assumptions get revised. Reserve contributions get calibrated. And the conversations that will define the coming year with owners begin to form.
On Thursday, August 13, I will have the privilege of co-presenting at the Ohio Valley Chapter of the Community Associations Institute’s monthly educational luncheon on exactly this topic. The program is titled “Building a Better Budget: Guidelines, the Law, and the Lesson of Surfside,” and it walks through the four forces that should shape every community association budget in 2026.
I am pleased to be presenting alongside Matt Shergalis, Principal at Village Reserve, one of the region’s respected reserve study firms. Between his engineering-side perspective and my operational one, we will bring together the two sides of a budget conversation that too often happen in separate rooms.
Event Details
Building a Better Budget: Guidelines, the Law, and the Lesson of Surfside
Date: Thursday, August 13, 2026
Time: 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM
Location: Holiday Inn Centre Park of West Chester, 5800 Muhlhauser Road, West Chester, OH 45069
Cost: $45 for CAI members, $55 for non-members
Registration: www.ohiovalleycai.orgWhat We Will Cover
A well-built community association budget is not a single-input document. It sits at the intersection of four different forces, and every board and manager needs to understand all four to build a budget that will hold up over time.
What CAI recommends. The Community Associations Institute has published guidance on best practices for association budgeting for decades. Reserve funding at defensible levels. Realistic contingency allowances. Transparent presentation to owners. Structured review cycles. These are the professional-industry standards, and they exist because thousands of boards have collectively learned what works and what does not.
What Ohio law requires. ORC 5311, the Ohio Condominium Act, and ORC 5312, the Ohio Planned Community Act, both establish specific board responsibilities around budget adoption, notice to owners, and financial recordkeeping. The statutes are not always aligned with CAI best practice. Boards need to know where legal minimums sit and where practical prudence takes over.
What Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac quietly demand of your reserves. The March 2026 tightening of Fannie and Freddie condominium lending guidelines has real teeth. Communities with weak reserves or significant deferred maintenance now face direct consequences for unit financing eligibility, which affects resale value for every unit in the project. A budget that ignores these standards can pass the board meeting and still fail the next resale.
The hard lesson of Champlain Towers South. The June 22 release of NIST’s technical findings on the 2021 Surfside collapse reminded the entire industry of what happens when reserves and repairs are deferred too long. Ninety-eight people died in less than twelve seconds. A $15 million repair program had been approved before the collapse. The structural work had not started. The lesson is not distant. It sits in the reserve line of every condominium budget in America.
Who Should Attend
The luncheon is open to CAI members and non-members alike. The material is designed for:
- Board members heading into budget season and looking for a structured framework
- Community managers preparing to walk their boards through 2027 budget preparation
- Business partners who work with community associations on financial matters, insurance, reserve studies, or engineering
- Board candidates who want to understand the fiduciary weight of the budget decisions they may soon be making
Whether you sit on a board, manage communities, or partner with them, you will walk out seeing your budget differently.
Why Ohio Valley CAI
The Ohio Valley Chapter of CAI is one of the strongest regional chapters in the country, serving community associations across southwest Ohio and Northern Kentucky. Monthly educational programming brings managers, board members, and business partners together for practical, current, and locally-relevant content. Eclipse has been an active supporter of Ohio Valley CAI for years, and I am always honored to be asked to contribute to the chapter’s programming.
If you are involved with any community association in the Cincinnati, Dayton, or Northern Kentucky area and have not yet plugged into Ohio Valley CAI, this luncheon is a good place to start. The connections you make in the room are often as valuable as the content on the agenda.
Register
Registration is available at www.ohiovalleycai.org. Tickets are $45 for CAI members and $55 for non-members and include lunch. Space is limited. For registration questions, contact Robin Miller, Executive Director of Ohio Valley CAI, at caiovchapter@gmail.com. I hope to see you there.
If you would like to talk in advance about how any of these budget topics apply to your specific community, reach out to us here. Eclipse works with 185 communities across Ohio and Northern Kentucky, and we are always glad to walk a board through what a well-built budget looks like for their situation.
