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6 North Shore Towers Courier n January 2017 Money Matters Annual Finance Meeting reports good news BY STEPHEN VRATTOS Photos by Stephen Vrattos Thursday evening, December 8, Mario Carmiciano opened his inaugural Open Finance Meeting as North Shore Towers Board President hearkening to absent fellow-member Fred Chernow’s tradition of donning a green tie whenever he had good financial news to announce. The amicable allusion set the tone for the predominantly positive news to follow. Joining Carmiciano was NST Comptroller Robert Seriksad and Board Treasurer and Finance Committee and Insurance Sub-Committee Chair Steve Redlich, to whom Carmiciano ceded the floor without further preamble. Redlich designed a colorful PowerPoint Presentation, complete with breakdowns and pie charts, to accompany his research on NST’s financials for 2016 and projected numbers for 2017. But before diving into the numbers, however, he took the time to recognize the many members of the Finance Committee and Greenthal Management, whose diligent efforts contributed to the presentation. “The budget process is a monumental task,” Redlich noted. According to the Finance Committee Chair, the process begins in the summer, with General Manager Glen Kotowski and Serikstad pulling together all the heads of the various divisions of North Shore Towers to discuss their “wish lists” of priorities as to what needs to get done. These lists are then submitted to the budgeting committee, who then go through the painstaking process of massaging the numbers, trying to balance the needs of these divisions within the budget. They in turn submit a tentative budget to the full Finance Committee, where it is either approved or sent back to the Budget Sub-Committee for more massaging, until they have an amended budget which is approved with all parties satisfied at the result. The process is undertaken for both the apartment corporation and the Country Club. Redlich began his report with the apartment cooperation numbers, which he reminded everyone has two budgets: Operating and Capital Improvement. As such the revenue streams differ for each. To the latter go all the proceeds from the Flip Tax, the 25¢ assessment—which goes into effect in June 2017—and a percentage of any surplus which may generated in a given year. The predominant revenue stream of the Operating Budget comes from maintenance fees. Redlich’s announcement that, for the second year in a row, the 2017 maintenance would not increase, was greeted with an approving murmur and smattering of applause in the audience. The great news was quickly tempered with Redlich’s assertion that the possibility of continuing to keep maintenance fees from rising beyond 2017 would be “quite challenging.” Several months ago, NST received a notice from the New York City Department of Finance stating that property values for the co-op were escalating nearly ten percent. According to Redlich, the city had finally caught up with the recent tremendous rise in property values at North Shore Towers. Ten percent may not seem like much, but it equates to an increase in taxes over a five-year period of approximately $2.5 million. Given a one-percent increase in maintenance equals only about $400,000, this increase in market Board Treasurer Steve Redlich designed a PowerPoint Presentation to accompany the 2016 Financial review Kudos to everyone involved in crunching the numbers 2016 expenditures (January–November actual + projected December) and 2017 projected 6 NORTH SHORE TOWERS COURIER ¢ December 2016


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