🔍 When Transparency Gets Expensive

Are records requests becoming the new scapegoat?

⚠️ Last month I warned that something like this might happen.

When owners begin asking difficult questions and requesting records, the discussion often shifts.

Not:

✔️ Are owners receiving complete information?
✔️ Are records being properly maintained?
✔️ Are questions being adequately answered?

Instead, the conversation can become:

❌ “Management is spending too much time on this.”
❌ “These requests are creating problems.”
❌ “How do we make this stop?”

I wrote previously about these concerns:

When Transparency Goes to Die

And now things appear to be moving exactly in that direction.

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📁 The New Complaint: Records Requests Take “A Lot” of Time

During this week’s board meeting, management at 175 East Delaware Place Homeowners Association stated that responding to four records requests required approximately ten hours of administrative time, including roughly six hours outside of normal business hours.

Management also expressed concern that there were not enough hours in the day to complete regular responsibilities while responding to large requests within the statutory time period. Management further noted that reviewing, compiling, and redacting records can require significant time.

Those workload concerns may be entirely legitimate.

But they also raise a separate question:

When statutory rights create administrative strain, is the issue the request itself—or the systems and staffing supporting the process?

So naturally, owners should ask:

What exactly is the proposed solution?

Is it:

📂 Better document organization?

📂 Better electronic systems?

📂 More efficient record retention?

📂 Improved transparency?

Or is it:

💰 Shift the burden elsewhere?

During the discussion, the Board President indicated that monthly financial reports could satisfy much of the requested information, with additional records potentially being addressed separately if necessary.

Owners may reasonably ask whether summary financial packets always substitute for underlying records when owners seek contracts, invoices, supporting documentation, approvals, or other source materials.

Concerns were also expressed regarding the motives behind certain requests.

That raises a broader issue:

Should records requests be evaluated based on perceived motives, or based on whether owners are exercising rights provided under the governing framework?

When the discussion turns to charging owners for staffing costs associated with exercising statutory rights, the conversation changes entirely.

Owners exercising statutory inspection rights should not be portrayed as creating a problem simply because compliance requires staff time. Responding to records requests is part of an Association’s governance and transparency function.

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🧾 A Recently Reviewed Memo Raises Questions

According to a Finance Committee memorandum, dated July 21, 2025:

🔹 Management decided not to hire a temporary replacement during an employee’s maternity leave.

🔹 Existing employees absorbed those duties.

🔹 According to the memorandum, the association ended up approximately $30,000 under budget in office staffing costs.

🔹 Additional compensation was later recommended for employees taking on those extra responsibilities.

Let’s be clear:

👏 Rewarding employees for additional work is not inherently improper.

But this raises an obvious question:

🤔 If management operated with reduced staffing for an extended period, is a later staffing problem necessarily being created by records requests?

Or:

🤔 Was a staffing issue already present?

Those are two very different questions.

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🏢 Owners Usually Request Records For One Reason

Let’s be honest.

Nobody wakes up on a Saturday morning excited to review:

📄 invoices

📄 contracts

📄 bank reconciliations

📄 reserve transfers

📄 accounting entries

📄 insurance renewals

📄 board approvals

Owners request records because records are often the only way to answer basic questions:

💵 Where did money go?

📋 Why was a decision made?

🔍 Was a contract followed?

📊 Was the budget accurate?

📁 Do the documents support what owners were told?

Transparency isn’t a luxury.

It isn’t an inconvenience.

It’s one of the very few safeguards owners actually possess.

And owners often request records because questions sometimes arise regarding whether critical information has been fully distributed.

For example, questions have been raised regarding whether board members received complete copies of certain materials before significant decisions were made, including draft reserve studies, tax filings and related schedules, auditor communications, and detailed proposed budget information.

If governing bodies are expected to oversee financial decisions involving millions of dollars, access to complete information becomes more than an administrative issue.

It becomes part of the governance process itself.

Internal controls also raise broader governance questions.

For example, if management personnel maintain sole signatory authority over association funds while none of the Association’s 48 board members serve as signatories, owners may reasonably ask how financial oversight responsibilities are structured.

The issue is not whether wrongdoing exists.

Effective internal controls are designed to function before problems occur—not after.

Governance systems are generally strongest when authority, oversight, and independent review mechanisms are appropriately balanced.

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🚩 One Comment Stood Out

One comment made by the Board Treasurer during this week’s board meeting stood out.

He stated that he had seen fraud occur on a massive scale within charities and city governments where he had worked, but said he could not envision similar issues occurring within an HOA environment.

That comment deserves attention.

Not because anyone has proven fraud.

Not because anyone should presume fraud.

But because internal controls are generally designed precisely for situations where people assume problems could never happen.

Controls do not exist because organizations expect dishonesty.

They exist because organizations rely on systems rather than assumptions.

History repeatedly shows that problems often emerge where people believe:

⚠️ “Nobody would do that here.”

⚠️ “Everyone involved is trustworthy.”

⚠️ “Everything is probably fine.”

Fraud, accounting irregularities, conflicts of interest, and governance failures rarely begin with someone announcing:

“Good evening everyone. I’d like to inform the board that I have begun committing fraud.”

Instead, they often begin with confidence replacing verification.

And that is exactly why transparency, documentation, and independent review exist.

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✔️ The Goal Is Usually To Find Nothing

Owners are not requesting records in hopes of uncovering wrongdoing.

Most owners hope to find:

✔️ Accurate invoices

✔️ Proper approvals

✔️ Legitimate accounting entries

✔️ Complete contracts

✔️ Straightforward explanations

Because finding nothing is actually good news.

Finding nothing means things are working.

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But what happens when the people asking questions begin to be viewed as the problem?

That may be the more important issue.

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⚖️ Can an HOA Hire a Temp and Bill the Requesting Owner?

This is where the issue becomes more serious.

The question is not whether management spends time responding.

Of course they do.

The question is whether an association can convert ordinary operating costs into a chargeback simply because owners exercised statutory rights.

Illinois law generally allows certain charges associated with records production, such as:

📄 copies

📄 reproduction expenses

📄 certain direct retrieval costs where permitted

But that is different from:

❌ shifting ordinary staffing costs

❌ shifting management overhead

❌ shifting expenses that would exist regardless of the request

And there is an important fact here.

According to previously reviewed board materials, management operated for an extended period with three employees rather than the usual four, resulting in substantial cost savings.

That raises an obvious question:

🤔 If management previously functioned with reduced staffing, how does a staffing shortage suddenly become the financial responsibility of the owner requesting records?

Because if the association hires a temporary worker who:

📞 answers phones

📧 responds to emails

📁 performs general office work

📋 assists management functions

...that begins looking less like a records-production expense and more like an ordinary operating expense.

And if ordinary operating expenses can simply be relabeled as “records request costs,” owners should ask a difficult question:

⚠️ Does the right to inspect records still mean much if exercising it becomes expensive?

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🔎 Transparency Note

These questions matter because governance systems are tested most when questions become uncomfortable.

This article discusses records, board-meeting discussions, governance practices, and internal-control considerations based on information reviewed and observations regarding Association operations.

The purpose is not to presume wrongdoing by any person or entity, but to examine whether governance systems, transparency practices, and oversight mechanisms are functioning as intended.

Questions are not allegations. Scrutiny is not proof of misconduct. Discussion of governance issues should not be interpreted as factual conclusions regarding any person’s conduct or intent.

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🔒 PAYWALL

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💡 Rights Do Not Need To Be Eliminated To Become Discouraged