Beyond the Budget
Financial Clarity & Decision-Making for Community Associations
Most associations don’t have a budgeting problem. They have a financial understanding problem.
Boards approve budgets they can’t fully read. Managers present condensed summaries that hide as much as they reveal. Reserve shortfalls, tax exposure, and cross-subsidized losses accumulate quietly — until they surface as a special assessment or a lawsuit. This course exists to change that.
Over four sessions, Beyond the Budget gives directors, managers, and owners a structured, practical framework for reading association finances, spotting risk early, and making decisions before the year closes the door on them. It is taught by Michael J. Novak, CPA, CMA, CFA — and built on the same analysis CIA uses in its forensic engagements.
Who It’s For
- Board members who vote on budgets they didn’t write and want to understand what they’re approving.
- Community association managers who want to move from reporting numbers to explaining them.
- Owners who suspect the consolidated statement isn’t telling the whole story.
No accounting background required. The course teaches the reasoning, not the jargon.
The Framework
Every session follows one financial system, end to end:
If any step is wrong, everything that follows is wrong. The course teaches you to test each one.
What You’ll Learn
Data, Trends & Budget Integrity
Read financial statements with a critical eye. Why netting hides risk, why accrual consistency matters, and how a five-year trend reveals structural problems a single year conceals. Includes the Illinois budget-disclosure baseline.
Forecasting, PYE & Financial Decisions
Turn current data into a Projected Year-End you update monthly. Classify variances, run the surplus decision framework, understand Revenue Ruling 70-604, and size the working capital your association actually needs.
Allocation & Financial Transparency
Follow the money past the consolidated total. The three buckets — assessment income, core operations, ancillary operations — direct vs. fully-loaded cost, and how to find the losses hidden inside an apparent surplus.
Reserves, Taxes & Decision-Making
Capital vs. non-capital, reserve adequacy and percent-funded trajectory, the Form 1120-H framework and the 90% expenditure test, intergenerational equity, and a clear decision framework: increase, adjust, reduce, or defer.
You Build the Model
This isn’t a lecture you watch. Participants work in a live financial model — five-year trend analysis, a PYE engine, core-vs-ancillary visibility, and a working-capital tracker — and leave able to run it on their own association. The tool is yours to keep.
See It in the Real World
The failures this course teaches you to catch aren’t hypothetical. CIA documented every one of them at a single Chicago flagship association — netting and hidden ancillary losses, reserve waivers without the required vote, expense-vs-capital misclassification, and a surplus never protected under 70-604.
→ Read the 175 East Delaware Place case study
The case study shows what goes wrong. This course teaches you to see it coming.
Format & Tuition
- Four sessions, eight hours total
- Offered monthly, May through November
- $299 per person or $995 per association (up to 10 attendees). Larger groups: ask about a private session for your board — mnovak@cia.mba.
- To register or schedule a private session: mnovak@cia.mba
Beyond the Budget is an educational program. It provides general information for community association governance and does not constitute legal, tax, or accounting advice for any specific association.
