Thinking Smarter About Aging Infrastructure


Pam Winslow, CMCA, AMS, PCAM, RS Management Expertise for Community Associations LLC


Addressing the Aging Infrastructure Problem After the tragedy in Surfside, Florida, community association boards and their management partners are actively looking for solutions to the problem of aging infrastructure and deferred maintenance. It’s a delicate balancing act between what homeowners will bear in costs and the needs of the property.


You’ve heard the standard advice — “Get a reserve study” — and that is a good start, but that’s not enough.


Reserve Studies are One Piece of the Puzzle Reserve studies are used as a budget planning tool, but a reputable reserve study, created according to CAI standards, provides far more insight than just budgeting: identifying potential safety issues, critical conditions, historical project background, disclosure of forthcoming projects, best practices, and where required by law — a structured disclosure to the ownership body.


What prevents the reserve study from being effective beyond the budget is that it’s a static report — a snapshot of the community’s condition based on the day it was created. A static reserve study can quickly become outdated should an unexpected capital repair or replacement become necessary due to unforeseen circumstances.


Strategic Planning is the Solution To solve aging infrastructure problems, you need more than just a contribution number. You need a strategic plan that’s based on a regularly updated reserve study — a living reserve study, if you will.


This involves mapping out all the components from your reserve study to track replacement needs, maintenance schedules, a financial plan to pay for it, and a project management strategy that will allow you to implement that plan on time and on budget. With your strategic plan in place, your community has a sustainable strategy to address your aging infrastructure that will withstand board turnover and membership pushback. But this strategy only works if you continually maintain it.


Without specialized tools, this prospect demands a dedicated manager, and a commitment from the Board to invest additional time and effort to create and maintain the plan. It involves


26 May | June 2023


seeking out data from various sources, such as contractors, accounting staff, bankers, and project managers on an annual basis in preparation for presentation and discussion with your board and committee members. Three areas to consider are:


Inventory Control Tracking of the common area elements in real-time, log updates from preventive maintenance actions and assessment reports to adjust or extend the useful life of your reserve components where possible.


Capital Planning and Analytics Avoid using financial models based on outdated, static information, and instead, create multiple funding models to plan your budget and potentially buy more time to build up reserves and prepare for future projects.


Project Tracking Tools When it’s time to replace outdated components and implement capital improvements in your community, you need project management tracking to map your expenditures to your reserves lending insight into every phase of your project.


Extending the Remaining Useful Life One of the most important aspects of reserve planning is knowing when a component will need to be repaired or replaced. The remaining useful life of many common area components — as reported in the reserve study — is intended to help direct the board on when to take action, with the help of industry professionals, based on the exact condition of any given component. Being able to predict with increased accuracy when the association will incur an expense for major repair or replacement is essential.


When you begin tracking your community’s components in real- time, you will be able to calculate the impact of efforts that extend the useful life of your components such as implementing regular inspections, preventive maintenance plans, and adding project phases to your capital improvements schedule. Those efforts need to be reflected in your living reserve study, giving you a better understanding of the current state of your components, and thus extending the time available for the association to fund capital projects.


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