June 14 ORANJ Zoom Conversation

Residents from 17 communities attended the June 14th, 2023, Zoom conversation: Cadbury, Cedar Crest, Crane’s Mill, Crestwood Manor, The Evergreens, Fellowship Village, Friends Village, Lantern Hill, Laurel Circle, Lions Gate, Masonic Village, Meadow Lakes, Medford Leas, Oaks at Denville, Riverwalk Village at HoGS, Wiley, & Winchester Gardens. 

I did something wrong in hosting the zoom and many people had a lot of trouble getting in.  I am so sorry.  Thanks again to Andy Kleppe for preparing the recap.   Maggie Heineman, Communications Chair, June 17, 2023.

RECAP BY ANDY:

1.    Barbara Trought called the meeting to order at 10:00 AM.    Close Caption is available by selecting the icon at the bottom of your screen.  Barbara reminded all that the next ORANJ Plenary Meeting will be on October 18, 2023 at Monroe Village.  Details to follow.

2.    Barbara reviewed the discussions held at the Executive Committee meeting on June 12th about Pending legislation in the NJ Senate requiring payment of refundable deposits, set forth in residents’ contacts, within 12 months.  The NJ Legislature is currently working on the fiscal 2024 budget which must be passed by 6/30/2023.  Once done it will adjourn and start up again in early September.  ORANJ will keep current on the legislation and may call upon all RA Presidents and community residents to engage their legislators to tell them, while the law maybe well intentioned, it may do financial harm to some CCRCs.  In preparation for possible future action, please read Gary Baldwin’s message on our website that explains why ORANJ OPPOSES THIS LAW.

3.    ORANJ believes that the 2018 legislation about deposits is working well and ORANJ is in the process of gathering statistics from the communities as to length of refunds currently as well as conducting the annual census of ORAANJ communities.

4.    Barbara also addressed a previous question as to how much money a Resident Association’s 501(c)(3) is allowed to maintain.  Executive Committee member Rick Ober, a retired NJ Attorney, has researched the matter.  There is no set limit as such, but to keep excess funds might call into question the organization tax exempt status.

5.    A discussion of budgets came up concerning both the Resident’s Association’s budget and the budget for each community formulated by its Board of Trustees.  The Resident’s Association budget, if it has one, is normally presented, discussed and voted on at a meeting of the Resident Association of each community.  The annual budget of the community is usually review in some detail by each communities’ Finance Committee and after approval by the Board of Trustee is presented to the members of the Residents Association in an informational format.  Some comments revealed that the details of the budgets presented to the RAs Finance Committees differs for many communities and may well depend on the forcefulness of those committees to obtain details. Much of this discussion involved the Budget of Morrison, Inc. which is the provider of dining services for the 7 NJ Springpoint communities. 

6.    A Cranes Mill resident reminded us that Federal Tax Form 990, which is an annual report to be filed by the Governing Bodies, is easily available on the internet and is a good source of information concerning the details of each communities’ Board of Trustees.

7.    A resident asked if overnight trips were sponsored by Resident Associations.  While some had done so pre-covid there seems not much interest and if so outside companies are engaged.

8.    An attendee reflected on the continuing high cost of medications and suggested a plea to communities’’ US Congressmen to address the problem.  NJ Representative Andy Kim is active on the matter.

9.   Next Residents Zoom meeting will be on Wednesday July 12th, 2023 at 10AM.

10. There being no further discussions the meeting was adjourned at 10:45AM.