Manage Board And Vendor Operations

---
name: manage-board-and-vendor-operations
description: "Run board/annual meetings, official records, vendor coordination, and common-area maintenance by traversing the community-association decision tree (meeting notice per the bylaws → agenda & board packet → quorum/proxy → minutes (motions/votes/decisions) → official-records retention & owner-inspection; and for vendors: scope → competitive bids with insurance/license verification → board-approval threshold → work-order & preventive-maintenance schedule → inspection loop), then return the meeting package + minutes and the vendor/maintenance plan within budget and spending authority. Reach for this when the user asks 'prepare our annual meeting', 'take the minutes', 'get bids for a contract', 'schedule the common-area maintenance', or 'what records must we keep?'. Used by community-operations-specialist (primary) and association-management-lead."
---

# Skill: manage-board-and-vendor-operations

> **Invoked by:** `community-operations-specialist` (primary — meetings, records, vendors, maintenance) and `association-management-lead` (the governance/records/vendor-oversight standard).
>
> **When to invoke:** "prepare our board / annual meeting"; "take the minutes"; "what notice do we owe?"; "get competitive bids for the landscaping / roofing contract"; "schedule the common-area / pool / preventive maintenance"; "what official records must we keep and who can inspect them?"; any "run the meeting or coordinate the vendor" question.
>
> **Output:** the meeting package (notice, agenda, board packet, quorum/proxy plan) + accurate minutes + the official-records/retention plan, and/or the vendor-coordination + common-area-maintenance plan (scoped bids, insurance/license verified, board-approval threshold, work-order/inspection loop) — within budget and spending authority.

## Procedure

1. **Give notice by the bylaws and the statute — the meeting is only valid if noticed right.** Determine the meeting type (**board** vs **annual/member** vs **special**) and give the **notice** it requires: the timing window, the delivery method, and (for member meetings) the agenda. Open-meeting and notice rules are jurisdiction-specific — traverse the governance branch in [`../../knowledge/hoa-community-association-decision-tree.md`](../../knowledge/hoa-community-association-decision-tree.md) and verify the current requirement. A defectively-noticed meeting can void its actions.
2. **Build the agenda and the board packet.** Assemble the **agenda** (call to order, quorum, prior minutes, treasurer/financials, committee reports, old/new business, owner forum where required, adjournment) and the **board packet** (financials vs budget, delinquency aging, violation/ARC summary, vendor/maintenance status, action items). A prepared board decides; an unprepared one defers.
3. **Plan quorum and proxies.** Confirm the **quorum** the bylaws require (a frequent annual-meeting failure point), and handle **proxies / absentee ballots / electronic voting** per the documents and statute. No quorum → no valid action; plan the proxy campaign before the meeting, not at it.
4. **Take minutes that capture decisions, not the transcript.** Record **who was present, the quorum, each motion, who moved/seconded, the vote, and the decision** — plus actions assigned. Minutes are the **legal record of what the board decided**, not a play-by-play of the discussion; keep them factual and clean. Draft, circulate, adopt at the next meeting, and file to the official records.
5. **Keep the official records and honor inspection rights.** Maintain the **official records** (governing documents, minutes, financials, contracts, reserve study, membership/roster, insurance, violation/ARC files) for the **retention period** the statute requires, and honor **owner inspection requests** within the statutory timeframe and limits (some records are protected — personnel, attorney-client, specific-owner delinquency). Records are the association's memory and its legal shield.
6. **Coordinate vendors — scope, bid, verify insurance/license, respect the threshold.** For a contract: **scope** the work, get **competitive bids** (an RFP for anything material), and **verify each bidder's insurance and license** before award (an uninsured vendor's injury on the common area becomes the association's liability). Respect the **board-approval threshold** for the contract value and the **approved budget** — an over-threshold or off-budget award goes to the board, not around it.
7. **Schedule common-area maintenance preventively and close the loop.** Build a **maintenance calendar** for the common elements (landscaping, pool open/close, HVAC/elevator service, roof/gutter, painting cycle, pressure-washing, pest), run it on **work orders**, and **inspect** the completed work before payment. Preventive maintenance is cheaper than emergency replacement and reduces liability; deferred maintenance is deferred cost plus risk. State the 1-2 conditions that change the plan (e.g., "if the reserve study moves the painting cycle up, the maintenance calendar and the vendor scope shift").

## Worked example

> User: "Prepare our annual meeting and get the landscaping contract re-bid."

- **Notice:** annual member meeting — send the statutory notice (e.g., 14 days, mailed + posted; **verify the current requirement**) with the agenda and any candidate/ballot materials.
- **Packet & quorum:** build the board packet (year-end financials vs budget, reserve status, delinquency aging, ARC/violation summary); confirm the bylaws' **quorum** and run a **proxy** drive ahead of time so the meeting isn't voided for lack of quorum.
- **Minutes:** record attendance, quorum, the election result, each motion/second/vote, and decisions; circulate a draft, adopt next meeting, file to official records.
- **Landscaping re-bid:** write an RFP (scope: mowing, beds, irrigation, seasonal), solicit ≥3 bids, **verify insurance certificates and license** on the finalists, and present a recommendation to the board — the contract value is over the manager's spending authority, so the **board awards** it.
- **Maintenance loop:** put the awarded scope on the maintenance calendar with work orders and a monthly inspection before payment.
- **Change condition:** if quorum can't be reached, plan the adjourned-meeting / reduced-quorum path the bylaws allow — don't act without a valid quorum.

## Guardrails

- **Notice the meeting correctly** — timing, method, and agenda per the bylaws/statute; a defectively-noticed meeting can void its actions.
- **No quorum → no valid action** — confirm the quorum requirement and run proxies *before* the meeting.
- **Minutes capture decisions, not the discussion transcript** — motions, seconds, votes, decisions, and assigned actions; they are the legal record and the shield.
- **Keep official records for the retention period and honor inspection rights** — within the statutory timeframe, and mind the protected-record exceptions.
- **Verify vendor insurance and license before award — always**, get competitive bids, and respect the **board-approval threshold** and the budget; an over-threshold/off-budget award goes to the board.
- **Maintain the common areas preventively** and inspect before payment — deferred maintenance is deferred cost plus liability.
- The governance/vendor **policy & thresholds** are the `association-management-lead`'s call; running the meetings and vendors is the `community-operations-specialist`'s — keep the seam clean.
- Volatile specifics (notice periods, quorum rules, records-retention & owner-inspection rules, electronic-voting/proxy rules, licensing requirements) are **jurisdiction-specific** — carry a **retrieval date**, verify at use, and route legal questions to counsel. See [`../../knowledge/hoa-community-association-patterns-2026.md`](../../knowledge/hoa-community-association-patterns-2026.md).