Next VVA Board Meeting:
Sunday, January 9, 2022 @ 6:30PM at the clubhouse.
All members in good standing are welcome and encouraged to attend. If you want on the agenda, you must notify the office on or before the Monday prior to the board meeting.
Lake Viking News
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VVA Board of Directors Monthly Meeting Call to Order Tony Gronniger, lot 2281, called the meeting to order, held in the upper level of the clubhouse at 6:30pm. Board members present were: Marvin McNabb, lot 28; Mike Booth, lot 2380; Allan Slavin, lot 181; Celeste Armanees, lot 62; Mark Leggett, lot S165. Absent was Troy Lesan, lot 576. Allen Slavin led in prayer. Shad Mort led the Pledge of Allegiance. Tony Gronniger opened the meeting with the Vision/Mission Statement: “Lake Viking is a private lake aspiring to preserve our community and environment for future generations.” “Our informed members are the strength of our community.” Approval of Last Month’s Minutes Celeste Armanees moved to approve last month’s minutes, Allan Slavin seconded; motion passed. Handbook Committee No report Finance Committee Celeste Armanees reported: We met Thursday, December 9th online with 7 members present and guest Tony Gronniger. The bulk of the meeting was a presentation by Patrick Roth, our Morgan Stanley investment representative.
Morgan Stanley: We did a thorough annual review of VVA’s investment portfolio. As you recall, in February this year, the Finance Committee began a 3-bucket approach of investing our money. Bucket 1: currently $7,000 invested, is cash-on-hand for immediate needs, like a checking account to pay the next few month’s bills. Bucket 2: currently $1.4 million invested, is for short-term needs in the next twelve months, e.g. our massive silt basin project. Bucket 3: currently $285,000 invested, is for long-term needs, so ideally we’ll never touch it unless e.g. the dam breaks or some unexpected problem arises. The Morgan Stanley representative, Patrick Roth, presented for a half-hour on this total $1.6 invested at Morgan Stanley, as detailed above in the three different funds or “buckets”. He confirmed for us that each bucket is getting the approximate return on investment that we expected, resulting in an overall 1.6% yield, after the company’s maintenance fees. This overall 1.6% yield on our total $1.6 million invested = $25,000/year “profit” or yield to VVA. So why, you ask, our low 1.6% return vs. the Dow-Jones being up an impressive 15% return? It’s because we purpose-
THE VIKING VALLEY BOARD OF DIRECTORS& STAFF WISHES YOU A
Merry Christmas AND HAPPY NEW YEAR
THE OFFICE WILL BE CLOSED ON DECEMBER 24TH & 27TH. WE WILL REOPEN ON THE 28TH AND WILL BE CLOSED ON DECEMBER 31ST & JANUARY 3RD! WE WILL REOPEN ON THE 4TH!
December 2021
Volume 34, No. 8
December 12, 2021 ly invested in LOW-risk securities, NOT high-risk stocks like the Dow-Jones. We the Finance Committee back in February invested your money in the “safest” way possible, with low risk. Vs. Alternatively, we could change to a moderate-to-high risk strategy. The danger of high risk, of course, is that though you get big gains in a bull market, you also risk big losses in a bear market. Being good stewards or fiduciaries of VVA's money, we back in February chose the safer more cautious route of selecting LOW-risk investments for VVA's money; hence the low % return. Still, this investment gave VVA $25,000/year more "profit" than VVA has EVER generated, because VVA in the past had most (not all) of this money "under a mattress" not invested @ almost zero return. So generating approx $25,000/year every year profit is major progress for VVA. However, in future months, we may revisit this low-risk strategy, or more likely just transfer more money into the higher-performing bucket (after we complete the silt basin project), for a higher but still relatively low-risk % return. Taxes: We anticipate a high tax bill coming April 15th due to selling several, Community Area (CA) lots this year, with capital gains tax due on it next year. This is the same scenario we had last year, just less so. You'll recall this happened bigtime in the year 2020 when we sold the most CA lots; it's true again now just less so in 2021 when we sold a few CA lots. Budget: The year-to-date November 2021 Financial Statements were reviewed & appear correct. The Morgan Stanley balances discussed above already reflect a $170,000 withdrawal which paid the contractor for major road expenses & also paid year-end personal property taxes. Also reflected was an additional $250,000 out of Morgan Stanley transferred to BTC Bank to cover year-end operating expenses & more Silt Basin phase two expenses. Projected budget: Due to the changing landscape of finalizing year-end numbers, the final 2021 year-end budget & approval of next year's 2022 budget will be presented at January's Board meeting. Continued on page 5