JOSH DAVIS/BAYSIDE GAZETTE
Ocean Pines CFO John Viola addresses a litany of issues during a public meeting last Saturday.

By Josh Davis, Associate Editor

(Nov. 15, 2018) The frustration was apparent as Ocean Pines Chief Financial Officer John Viola on Saturday used the time for his monthly treasurer’s report to address several lingering questions, presumably asked of him by board and community members.

Much of it was delivered in a stream of consciousness style that occasionally related to developing the fiscal 2020 budget and often referenced prior-year losses and previous administrations that had been difficult to work with.

He began the report by saying monthly numbers were not yet available, because the regular board meeting had been moved up in the calendar. Viola said he owed the association a 12-month forecast and that would happen “the next time I sit here.”

Several minutes earlier, representatives from the Matt Ortt Companies made a presentation that included a handful of operational requests. Viola seemed puzzled at the time as to why they were there.

“Everything that they presented was definitely viable, definitely reasonable, certainly legit business requests,” he said. “I agree with those … they certainly have the right to ask to that and I would vote for it.

“It’s something that needs to be fine tuned in the way it was presented. I think that’ll work it’s way out,” Viola continued. “My point was not to Matt Ortt, but to Ocean Pines. There is a cost to all of that … that will be reflected somewhere in our assessment.”

He said assessments during the last five years had increased less than 1 percent, but added there should be no further charge this year for bulkheads or roads and bridges without a viable work plan. Viola, also the chairman of the budget and finance committee, said that group recommended “no further assessment to those two funds.”

Overall, he said the reserve study concluded replacement reserves were adequately funded and there were “no Taj Mahals” included in any of those plans.

However, he said Ocean Pines also needed a strategic plan and noted about 50 percent of total spending was through public works, police and administration.

“If we want to cut spending, we always want to look at … where the spend is,” Viola said. “If we’re going to cut costs, let’s make sure we cut the cost where it makes sense. If we cut a cost somewhere where we’re already bare minimum … we’re cutting costs at a cost that’s going to cost us somewhere else.”

He said legal fees this year had gone over budget just two or three months into the fiscal year.

“I was part of [the] team that put that budget together and made the recommendations last year,” he said. “I thought, based upon the prior year, a lot of stuff went on here – I didn’t think we’d have that stuff again. Well, [now] we have different types of stuff.

He added, “I believe our legal fees will do nothing but go up … that’s my assessment right now. They’re not going to go down.”

He also said audit fees were rising and the association had done “deep dives, low dives forensic dives, we got all kinds of dives.”

“Guess what? That costs money. Not saying we shouldn’t have it. But it costs money,” he said. “Where does that money come from?”

On marketing, Viola said the association spent about $25,000 to market the yacht club, but that the marketing efforts were not consistently reported. Golf marketing, for instance, came directly out of the golf budget, while that was apparently not so for the yacht club and aquatics.

“This is the type of stuff that I want to work on – not some of this other stuff that I have to work on,” Viola said. “Right now, golf is getting hit with a marketing number of … $70,000.”

Viola said he had to deal with a certain amount of bizarre rhetoric, not the least of which was that there were “ghost employees” taking up space on the aquatics payroll.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told that we have ghost employees at aquatics, but we haven’t found them,” Viola said.

At one point, he invoked author Ayn Rand and said, “When I look at the board, when I look at myself, when I look at the teams, I put it into two categories – and Ayn Rand got there before me.”

“There’s two types of people: producers and obstructers,” he said. “When I look at myself and my team, I can look at and I can guess who the producers and the obstructers are. I can look at this board and tell you, in my opinion, who the producers and the obstructers are. It doesn’t matter if you’re a producer or obstructer – both cost money.

“Producers need to have an obstructer there to keep them in line, but let’s make sure that what we’re doing makes sense for this community, and it makes sense for 8,500 homeowners – not 6,500 that somebody’s representing, or even somebody who is representing the people that voted for them and whatever their agenda was,” Viola continued.

“We all have to do what’s right for 8,500 homeowners. I try to do that in everything I do,” he said. “Everybody at that table should be addressing what’s best for Ocean Pines – 8,500 people. You can smell it when they’re not.”

Viola said he’d met with five of the seven board members extensively.

“Whether I agree with them or not doesn’t matter,” he said. “They want to understand what it is. I compliment them on that.

“My end, for the rest of the year and everything, I’ve got a very positive attitude with the board. We do have a lot to do. Hopefully we get it done,” Viola said.