The real legacy of the current IVGID Board
The problems outlined by IVGID’s Trustee Homan in last week’s TDT existed long before he took office; and despite “measurable progress” (after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in public funds to address them) increased fees will become this Board’s “legacy”. Staff is making improvements, but the Board’s outrageous decisions like the $11M Beach House, and an appetite for a $40M Snowflake Lodge/lift project will keep draining the finances of our property owners.
I have studied IVGID’s activities for a number of years and have a somewhat different perspective on where IVGID’s been and where it’s going.
The previous Board had identified the failures, but a series of contrived attacks hampered their efforts to find competent leaders to fix them by. Unsuccessful ethics complaints and recall efforts made it impossible for those Trustees to focus attention on the myriad of problems they inherited from the Wong/Callicrate era and earlier.
Organizational challenges
IVGID is limited to 2 vastly different powers: recreation and certain utilities. Finding leadership capable in both government and business is next to impossible. IVGID’s unlimited financial resources on the recreation side (so-called facility “fees”), enable it to continue expansion without any carefully developed business plan to cover expenses.
Yes, mistakes were made in acquiring so many amenities without planning for their maintenance. If maintenance costs/depreciation had been factored in, IVGID would likely never have acquired anything but the beaches (after all, that was the original plan).
Financial problems
The Finance Manager who was hired in 2020 by GM Winquest was incapable of successfully guiding the implementation of the Tyler ERP (HR and Finance systems). All the while Mr. Homan and company insisted IVGID’s problems were overblown. Only after they took office did they realize the problems were monumental.
There is still no integration of the various systems IVGID uses at its venues. A decades old system tracks Rec passes/punch cards. This Board keeps deferring these projects that are critical to running an efficient business operation. IVGID was put on fiscal watch, in part because it could not accurately measure the results of its operations.
Financial transparency continues to be an issue. In late 2024, the IT Manager announced that the Tyler Open Finance module had been installed. It still has not gone live. The public has not even a dashboard showing current financial data. Instead, they are demonized when they ask
for public records. Wrap-up reports for seasonal businesses are devoid of true financial performance.
Operational problems
IVGID has for years followed a philosophy of minimal oversight, claiming the Board’s only duty was to set policy, not provide oversight. When the previous Board attempted to change this culture, they were attacked as micromanagers. Staff was accustomed to almost complete independence. They accused Trustees of meddling and a creating a “hostile work environment.”
The District will pay out $655,000 for its Early Separation Incentive Program cutting 4 unneeded positions that would have cost salary and benefits totalling $782,000 next fiscal year. These positions would likely have been cut long ago if IVGID were not government. In spite of cuts, the savings are not clear. The proposed budget includes a nearly 2% increase in salaries and benefits plus greatly increased amounts for (contractual) services.
As for community engagement, a term that involves 2-way communications, the Capital Investment Committee is an example, not of outreach, but a backwards move to committees that meet behind closed doors. Last summer’s open house featuring the Beach House project, after it was already at the stage where no significant changes were possible, is an example, not of community engagement, but of propaganda.
Capital Planning
Other government agencies would salivate over a capital plan that could be funded by a fee only limited to what their governing bodies think the property owners would bear. For years, IVGID collected these fees for projects that were cancelled, but never refunded the money. The resulting cash balance in Community Services was an obscene amount. The proposed 5 yr. capital plan calls for another $60M just for recreation, and not including a new admin building, so the fees are already projected to soon be over $2,000.
On the utilities side, the effluent pipeline replacement project was well underway when the prior Board was in office, after years of delays during the W/C era.
Conclusions
It’s time to recognize the inequities of the facility fee itself, its disproportional distribution among the various amenities and the unfair burden it puts on those who don’t have the income to support or use the higher cost amenities.
It’s time to end the false narratives and admit the fees are a deceptive device used to subsidize golf, promote tourism, and grow government, rather than to provide essential public recreation. These unlimited fees have enabled the District to acquire far more assets and operate far more
businesses than it can effectively manage, far too many for this small community to pick up all the losses and capex.
The argument that people “knew” about these fees when they purchased their homes is a myth. Most think it’s just a part of their tax bill or some voter approved bond repayment. They wrongly assume it has some kind of limit, like the other charges on the bill. While still others think IVGID is an HOA, not government.
Mr. Homan is arguing that we must preserve all the capital assets that have been acquired by imposing this very questionable fee. There are numerous alternatives including outsourcing, sale, or public private partnerships.
Those who benefit most from paying the fees are the frequent golfers who would have to pay tens of thousands of dollars for a comparable golf experience, and businesses like the Hyatt hotel and short-term rental owners, who only pay one facility fee per parcel, yet benefit tremendously from having these facilities to lure their customers. Staff, especially those who don’t own property here, benefit from deeply discounted or free use of all the facilities.
The founders of our community intended the recreational amenities, except for the beaches, to be owned, financed and operated by the private sector, not a bloated government bureaucracy.
Rather than just maintaining what we have, the current Board is bent on expanding IVGID’s commercial operations that most governments regard as inappropriate (bars. restaurants, and catering), since they can easily be provided by the private sector and compete with local businesses.
What’s in the future for IVGID? It doesn’t take a crystal ball to realize that as long as we have these board set facility fees to subsidize government run businesses, there will always be millions of operational losses, capital improvements and maintenance items that homeowners will be forced to pay. Added to the general citizen apathy (few show up at Board meetings or public hearings) the facility fees will only go in one direction – up.
