Who Gets the Surplus?

A letter in the Flier caught my eye this week:

Dispersing surplus funds to Columbia villages’ budgets

It’s written by Tom O’Connor, who has served a number of terms in the CA Board as a representative of Dorsey’s Search. You can read it here. It describes what is to become of the $500,000.00 in the  Villages Contingency Fund:

Now, it is agreed by the villages and association [that] the VCF is no longer needed and should be disbanded. CA is proposing that the VCF should be prorated between the 10 villages, with CA getting half of the money, $250,000.

Mr. O’Connor feels that this money belongs to the villages alone.

The VCF was funded from the villages’ excess funds over the 17 percent allowable at the end of their fiscal year. These excess funds were, and are, a direct result of proper budgeting and oversight by villages’ managers and boards.

So what’s up with this? I’d love to know more. Since this is an advocacy letter, and not a news article, there’s a strong motivation to persuade within the confines of a tight word limit imposed by the paper. Are there more facts that need to be considered?  I can think of a few questions right off the bat.

If you have background info on this, feel free to message me through the blog. And, if you have opinions, feel free to comment on the Village Green/Town² Facebook page.