Page 9 - CooperatorNews South Florida Expo 2021

SOFL.COOPERATORNEWS.COM COOPERATORNEWS SOUTH FLORIDA — EXPO 2021 9 housing, apartment building and home- owner association staff joined the tip list. the staff at your management company’s As far as your building support staff is home office, “Do what we did in the co- concerned, the word “TIPS” could very op I grew up in in Brooklyn,” says Glazer. well stand for “Time-Intensive Perpetual “One person goes around collecting mon- Service,” since many maintenance and ey from everyone for all of the employees. support workers often live on-site and are Those who contribute get their name on essentially on-call 24 hours a day. Though the holiday card that is given to the staff,” you may tip your custodian or your door- person throughout the year for doing vari- ous small jobs for you, it’s customary—and time to one’s maintenance service requests an important gesture of appreciation for in the New Year is another matter...) Don’t all they do—to give your building staff a just assume you can withdraw a fat stack of little something extra during the holidays. bills from your HOA’s operating fund and According to etiquette-master Emily Post, start stuffing Hallmark cards. holiday tipping “is a way to say ‘thank you’ to those who have provided service to you throughout the year—letting them know giving of tips, or you’ve decided to take up you’re pleased with what they have done a separate collection. There are a few basic for you.” When it comes to HOAs or condo it comes to deciding how much to gift your buildings, there are no hard-and-fast rules HOA or building staff. According to Post’s on exactly how much to tip each member website (www.emilypost.com), the main of your association’s staff; indeed, it’s next factors that help determine the gifts you to impossible to put a price tag on a se- cure building, an important package col- lected in a timely manner, or a happy, tail- wagging dog who your doorman was kind enough to walk because you were stuck in long you’ve known the person traffic. That said, there is one caveat boards must keep in mind when the holidays roll around and tipping is on people’s minds: more modest building or HOA) whether it’s appropriate—or even legal— to use common funds for tips and bonus- es. In one case a few years back, an HOA absentee uncle, the issue of tipping is hard- in Boca Raton was ordered to cease using ly your first priority. Same goes if you’re the association’s common funds to give the part of a super-self-sufficient cooperative employees of its management firm holiday community that composts its own mulch bonuses. In short, the condo’s bylaws for- bade using common funds for paying non- HOA employees, and the condo’s contract with its management company made it however, the following guidelines should explicit that management company staff were not association employees. Therefore, ures quoted below are guidelines for what spending common funds on bonuses, nice each household should contribute—not gesture though it was, represented an im- proper use of funds. According to attorney Eric Glazer, folks at tipping.org, and financial advisor founding partner of the law firm of Glazer Jean Chatzky, financial editor for NBC’s & Associates. P.A., in Fort Lauderdale, “I “Today Show” and a financial ambassador always get asked about the board’s right for the AARP. to dip into the operating account to give Christmas bonuses to association em- ployees. Unfortunately, the answer is “There’s a pretty wide range here, depend- that unless the association is contractu- ally obligated to pay these employees a ing or a more run-of-the-mill one, and gift or year-end bonus, and this amount how much the staff is at your beck-and-call is included in the budget, the association during the year.” cannot use the members’ funds for such a purpose.” Glazer is quick to point out that this “Take into consideration how nice they are doesn’t mean that tipping or seasonal to you, if you get lots of visitors or deliver- bonuses are illegal, or somehow improp- er—they just have to be given properly, in for you always. To maintain this level of accordance with business law and an as- sociation’s own bylaws. If you want to gift and those who don’t, don’t. (Whether that translates to quicker or slower response By the Numbers So either your documents support the variables to take into consideration when give your building staff are: • How pleased you are with their ser- vice • The frequency of the service or how • Your budget • Your regional customs • The type of establishment (a deluxe vs. Clearly, if you live in the basement unit of a run-down tenement owned by your and where every household has a hand in daily maintenance and upkeep. If your building or HOA is like most, help you figure out who gets what. The fig- the total gift!—and are averages of sug- gested figures published by Emily Post, the Building Supers & Maintenance Per- sonnel: $30–$100. According to Chatzky, ing on whether you live in a luxury build- Doormen: $25 and up. According to tip- ping.org’s holiday tipping guidelines page, ies, and if they’ve actually opened the door continued on page 25 See us at Booth 518, 520