By LYNETTE HAALAND, Four Points News

The University of Texas Golf Club community in Steiner Ranch is taking steps to create its own association and separate from being controlled by the Steiner Ranch Master Association.  

“SRMA is in charge of approving if we can spend our own money,” said Linda Messer, a member of the UTGC steering committee. “We’re interested in making sure things are going right and making things better.”

The goal of the community of nearly 520 homes is to start business on Jan. 1. There was a vote taken in September where a majority of the homeowners who voted want the change.  

There has been a UTGC committee for years but in the past two years or so it has shifted to a steering committee with the focus of creating a sub association.

“It is good for our neighborhood to have insight and control for what we’re doing back here,” Messer said. “It’s nothing against the board, we want to do it our way.”

Messer spoke in the homeowner forum at the SRMA board meeting last week asking politely and in a formal manner for the board to provide the golf community accurate financials. She’s been on the 10-member UTGC steering committee since she retired from IBM a couple of years ago.

The way it is set up now, UTGC has to go through SRMA to request projects and to get approval for projects in its community. UTGC gathers dues from its residents.

“We want to spend our own money and vote on our own projects,” Messer said.

The community has had a website since 2017 which states: The focus of the newly formed organization, which will be known as the Golf Community at Steiner Ranch, is to address its unique characteristics including supervise the manned gatehouse, review and respond to traffic concerns, maintain its own landscaping plan, prepare its own budget including reserves for road maintenance, etc., and enforce architectural and other regulations in this UT golf course community.

The UT community seeks to become like three other sub associations in Steiner including the Fairways at Steiner Ranch and the casitas at the golf club.

The vote

The steering committee communicated to the community via email, flyers and a banner urging UTGC members to vote on whether or not to become their own association.  

Months ago, UTGC asked for the emails on file of the households within the community but was not provided them so steering committee members collected emails on their own. The SRMA eventually provided UTGC with emails.

Voting ended Sept. 6 and UTGC received approximately 58 percent of the households in favor. In order to form a sub association, a group only has to have 51 percent, according to SRMA bylaws.

There are 519 homes and casitas in the UT Golf Club community. Out of 296 members who voted, 294 voted in favor of becoming their own association and two voted against it.

The vote was a point of discussion during the September SRMA board meeting, where the UTGC steering committee’s idea to form its own association was listed as the last item on the agenda.

One or two board members suggested that the UTGC wait until the transition is made with GrandManors, the new Steiner management company. They promised quicker approvals on things, more financial transparency, better tools, and quicker results for the community.  

Lawrence Spinetta, SRMA treasurer, also questioned if the entire community was getting notified about the vote. “We value doing this the right way,” he said.  

Clinton Brown, attorney who is at the SRMA board meetings said, “We need to work with the golf community, making sure every member has the opportunity to vote.”

Spinetta also said he has been working on the financials and said he wants to provide input to the UT community, which he also lives in. He said that he wants to go over with them line by line what it costs to run a community.

Seeking financials

UTGC has been frustrated in their attempts to get more financial information about their community. For months, the UTGC has been trying to get financial reports from SRMA and the HOA office. “We’ve gotten spotty ones in the past, not consistent.”

Messer noted that the Steiner HOA office has had a lot of turnover. The controller resigned earlier this year and to UTGC, it seems like “nobody’s keeping up with it,” she said.

Community manager,  Melinda Schoch, has been responsive but she has been tasked with a lot of things right now with a staff of two at the Steiner office.

In the past couple of months, UTGC made their request more formal at the SRMA board meetings. A representative requested more financial records at the August SRMA board meeting as well as last week’s September board meeting. Messer asked the SRMA board for clarification on invoices and stated that the UTGC wants their request to be formal and entered into the minutes of the board meeting.

UTGC has a budget of over $500,000 and most of the expenses are from landscaping and the gatehouse. Whatever is decided upon within the UTGC, it has to be approved by the SRMA board. They get the invoices and they pay for things.

The UTGC is trying to get the invoices and financials so it can go back to its homeowners and share what its actual budget is.

“We need the financial data, the real numbers,” Messer said.

Financial discrepancies

Interim Steiner director Scott Selman did share a Dropbox full of invoices in early September but there are some discrepancies of what UTGC thinks they should have spent and what the Steiner officials say they have spent, Messer said.

“At this point, there are more expenses than what the invoices can substantiate,” Messer said.

UTGC shows a variance in the neighborhood expenses of $150,000 as of records they’ve received through July 31 from the Steiner office. In other words, as it appears now, UTGC was charged approximately $150,000 more than what members think they owed, Messer said.

The steering committee members are not sure where the discrepancy is but say it is likely with the landscaping where there has been some changes. There have been some replantings but UTGC has not been provided all of the invoices.

Electricity for UTGC is also very high, Messer said. But they may separate that out at the end of the year and it may look different then, she added.

“All we know from the invoices they gave us, to substantiate the expenses, we don’t have enough invoices,” Messer said. “They need to go back and produce them or give us an explanation.”

Looking ahead

At this time UTGC does not want to be managed by the SRMA or Steiner’s new management company, GrandManors.

“We’ve already interviewed a management company and have already gotten quotes,” Messer said.

The golf club steering committee is confident that their future management company will be more attentive to the community’s issues and challenges such as the one brought up by Brian Thompto at the SRMA meeting last week.

This is actually the third time Thompto has appeared before the SRMA board over the past nine months or so to ask that something be done about a home on Woodland Hills Trail in the UT Golf community.

The property is close to Thompto’s home and there are dead bushes, fruit trees and defunct landscape lighting, he said. The property may be abandoned.

He has shared all of this before but still nothing has been done and it reflects on the surrounding area homes. It looks run down and neglected. He thinks it should be one of the primary jobs of the HOA to deal with violations such as this.

“How can it be possible that this home can be in almost a perpetual state of neglect and not be caught by the HOA,” Thompto said. “I don’t think I should have to complain. This neighborhood should get this done.”

Messer referenced Thompto’s complaint and said that the UTGC steering committee does not want situations like this to affect its community.

“We want to try it on our own. We think we’ll be a little happier with the outcome,” Messer said.