· All Pulte employees have been extremely responsive to the task force requests for information.
· Henry DeLozier, VP of Golf for Pulte Corporation decided what six management companies should be contacted for the RFP. Later in the process, one company not recommended by Pulte, was added.
· Regarding asset ownership, Henry DeLozier recommended, and the Community Association Board agreed, that the CA should own all golf maintenance assets, lawn mowers, tractors, etc. It is my opinion that this has the potential to significantly increase the overall cost of golf in SCT. Reasons why I oppose the CA owning the assets, excluding the land and buildings are:
o The Management Company may or may not have the same concern for the overall treatment of the equipment as the Community Association thus leading to higher maintenance, repair and/or replacement costs.
o What if SCT already has more equipment on hand than the new Management Company desires?
o What if the new Management Company already has a master lease agreement with a different supplier? Is the Management Company obligated to use the CA equipment even though the costs may be higher?
o What if the new Management Company requires additional equipment? Does the CA work to obtain this equipment?
o When the current leases expire, who will perform the lease / purchase analysis to determine how we should obtain new equipment and what is the best financial solution? Regardless of lease vs. purchase, who then negotiates the contract for the equipment?
o Asset ownership, lease renewals, lease vs. purchase analysis adds a significant work load to the CA.
o Who is responsible to ensure that routine maintenance is performed on the equipment and to who’s standard? The CA or the Management Company?
o What are the legal liabilities if an individual from the new Management Company is injured using equipment owned by the CA?
o In the unlikely event of equipment theft, who is responsible, the CA or the Management Company?
· I strongly believe that the task force and residents should be making key decisions and recommendations. So far the determination of what companies to contact, who should own the maintenance equipment and what type of contract should be written have all been sent to Pulte and the CA Board for their recommendation.
· Task Force currently favors a cost plus contract methodology. It is my opinion this could end up costing Sun City residents more than we are currently paying. This would be caused by continuing to paying for the entire current asset inventory, plus the additional cost of the Management Company’s fee, plus the additional cost of maintenance supplies, plus the additional cost of a possible Management incentive fee. The reasons that the Task Force is against a fixed bid is that they believe a company could “pad” their bid. I believe it may, in some cases, be possible for a company to “pad” their bid. However, we have an enormous amount of checkpoint data available on what other courses are paying. Example, Teravista is being managed by Troon and their annual cost per hole is in the $50,000 range. For comparison, SCT is closer to $90,000 per hole per year. If Troon were to reply to our RFP with a bid that is much greater than they are charging Teravista I would challenge their response and ask for supporting data since it would seem they may have padded their response. As for golf maintenance benchmark costs, we have cost data for the municipal courses in Austin, and the private courses Cimarron Hills and Lockinvar. Additional information is also available from independent studies conducted on golf maintenance costs in Georgia and the courses in Pinehurst. For information Sun City Texas is currently higher than any of these courses. With this many data points I do not believe we would accept a padded response to our RFP.
It is my opinion that if changes are not made to the RFP, and if the SCT residents continue to own the golf maintenance equipment, the efforts of the Golf Bid Task Force will not achieve the most cost effective solution for Sun City residents.
Thank you