What to Say When Your HOA Management Company says, “It’s not my job.”

Many of us living in Santa Clarita live in a neighborhood that belongs to an HOA.  Your HOA dues pay for the maintenance of the common property and for a property management company to run your HOA. What’s this got to do with pools?  Most HOAs have one or more pools and spas. In fact, there are over 300 large HOAs that have electricity bills from running the pool pumps that are over $25,000 a year. That’s $7.5 million a year.  Your HOA dues pay for the pool service company to maintain these pools and spas.
Recently I was asked to bid on some work for a local management group; along with the bid I did a free energy audit. In the energy audit I did I promised three things, as I do for all my commercial energy audits. First, if the equipment was upgraded the out of pocket cost would be $0. Second, the new pool equipment would do a better job cleaning the water so the pools and spas would need less chlorine. Third, I would apply for an Edison commercial pool equipment rebate.
I sent the company the energy audit. The HOA would have a $3,000 surplus the first year, and $16,000 every year after that. I asked the company to let me have five minutes at the next HOA meeting to explain the energy efficiency upgrade to the board members. This is not a sales pitch, it is just information on energy savings. Any pool contractor can apply for the SCE rebate and bid on the upgrade.
You will love the response I got. They said No! The employee claimed that he talked to the president of the HOA about saving $16,000 a year in electricity and the president decided that the HOA board just did not have the time to listen for five minutes to learn about saving electricity.
I tried to call the employee back, but he refused my calls. I did talk to a different employee, who happens to manage the HOA where I live. Five years ago she watched us do an energy efficiency upgrade for my HOA. She hired a contractor and paid the invoice for all the new equipment.  She deposited the SCE rebate check.  She pays the SCE bills. She was given a spreadsheet showing the before and after SCE bills, proving that the HOA is saving over $10,000 a year in electricity. I asked her to please tell her boss about the successful energy efficiency upgrade at my HOA and to tell the employee that manages the other HOA. She had a list of excuses why she refused to tell her boss or any of the other employees or clients of the company about this fantastic opportunity to save money.
First excuse: she claimed that none of the HOAs could afford to invest any money in new pool equipment. Second excuse: the current pool service company does not do this kind of energy efficiency upgrade. Third excuse: she felt that the HOA would not save any money. The last excuse was the icing on the cake.  She finally agreed that every one of the clients at the management company would save electricity, would get a SCE rebate and would pay $0 for the upgrade. Her last excuse? “It’s not my job”.
So next time you get one of those nice letters in the mail telling you that your management company is raising your HOA dues once again maybe you will pick up the phone and ask them WTH? Call and ask them instead of raising the dues why don’t they just do the energy efficiency upgrade. While you’re at it I would also tell them that if “it’s not my job” to spend your HOA’s money wisely whose job do they think it is? Maybe it should be the job of a different property management company, one who cares about their clients.
For more information, please call 661-263-7503 and visit www.PoolsByBen.com.