The Summit: the 2025 audit is in, and six years of where the money went

The monthly bill

The approved budget carries a history row at the bottom of its last page, and the board’s own minutes give the earlier figures. The quarterly $285 that every owner also pays to the Master Association is separate and is covered at the end.

Two special assessments sit outside the monthly figures. In October 2020 the board levied $1,464,870 for the 2021 roofing project, $8,315 to $11,667 per unit, payable at once or over 36 months at 3.1 percent. In 2023 it levied $85,052, $483 to $677 per unit, due in July, “to cover current year increases in insurance premiums.”

Insurance

The largest single change in the budget is the property insurance, and the minutes record it one renewal at a time.

• Dec 4, 2020The broker presents the 2021 renewal: a 20 percent increase on the property policy, 16 percent on the package, with a 2 percent named-storm deductible. Approved, all yes.
• Dec 13, 2021The 2022 renewal is “a 120% increase over expiring premiums,” with a 3 percent deductible. Approved, all yes.
• Dec 14, 2022At a special and emergency meeting the broker presents $10 million of windstorm coverage on a building appraised at $39 million. A second broker reports that the London markets would not quote because “values of the account are not large enough.” Both say “capacity in the marketplace is the problem.” The package is $399,441.77, up from $173,523.55, with a 5 percent named-storm deductible. Bound, all yes.
• 2023Insurance expense for the year is $581,228. The special assessment of $85,052 is levied in July. The year ends in deficit.
• 2024Insurance $423,359. Interest on the premium finance note $86,497.
• 2025Insurance $427,726 against a budget of $573,000. Interest $26,862. The note is payable in three quarterly installments of $78,662 at 5.94 percent.
• May 2026The windstorm policy renews. The audit puts the named-storm deductible at $1,984,402, “4% of the total insured value of the residential building.” The 2026 budget carries insurance at $435,000.

Reserves

At the same December 14, 2022 meeting the board accepted a new reserve study by Sedgwick Valuation Services. It put the replacement cost of all components at $5,573,546. Funding each component on its own schedule would take $676,974 a year; pooling the accounts would take $299,340. The draft 2023 budget carried $373,055. The board voted, all yes, to send owners a proxy on pooling.

Then the law changed. The audit describes it: “Effective December 31, 2025, the Association is required by State statutes to have a Structural Integrity Reserve Study (SIRS) performed,” and “in budgets adopted after December 31, 2024, the Association must include reserves for these structural components.” Those funds “may not be used for any other purpose.” The 2025 budget split its reserve contribution into $236,300 for structural items and $300,000 for everything else.

The flat roof was replaced between March and May 2025 at a cost the 2024 audit put at about $733,000; the 2025 audit books $772,771 against the structural reserve, which fell from $748,900 to $220,665. The 2025 structural study lists $4,276,479 of structural components and $1,886,793 of non-structural ones, $6,163,272 in all, against $1,474,068 on hand at year end. The nearest items on the schedule are the walkway deck coating at $387,310, listed with no remaining life, wall and ceiling coatings at $1,143,940 in two years, and fire protection modernization at $382,454 in three.

People and management

The payroll line covers the building’s own staff. It was $129,327 in 2021 and $252,034 in 2025; the 2026 budget carries $285,000. The December 13, 2021 minutes set three employees’ wages at $19.00, $16.00 and $16.56 an hour. The staff are employed through the management company and billed to the association with a markup, which the current manager put at 34 percent at the May 29, 2026 board meeting.

Management is the other line that changed shape, and the minutes explain why in three steps.

Step one: the operator’s manager, 2022. Through September 2022 the Summit and the Master Association shared one manager, Todd Preston, who was employed by the resort’s rental operator, ResortQuest and then Vacasa. The Summit paid Vacasa a flat $5,390 a month, $64,680 a year, a price unchanged since 2018. On August 5, 2022 the Master board voted to cancel Vacasa’s contract, and director Harrison’s reasons are minuted as six conflicts of interest: the manager “has a difficult time siding with the TMA on issues involving the RMC since he ultimately is hired through the RMC”; “the general accounting function should not be controlled by the RMC”; the operator’s general manager “should never be the President of TMA or even hold an office or have voting rights”; the operator had access to records “which should be private”; and the Tides and Beach Manor “realized this conflict years ago and have moved their management to an independent company.” The Master took bids and hired Virtuous Management Group. The Summit’s own minutes do not record its reasons: its agendas for August 20 and September 21, 2022 list “Management Agreement” and “Management Contract,” and the portal holds no minutes for either meeting. The Summit moved to Virtuous on September 30, 2022, and at its October 22 annual meeting the change was presented as following the Master Association’s move. The manager himself moved with the contract; Preston stayed on under Virtuous.

Step two: the Master hires its own, 2023. Under Virtuous the two associations kept sharing. The Summit paid 46 percent of a manager, coordinator and accountant, the Master 35 percent, Captiva 11 and Sierra Dunes 8, a split recorded in the Master Association’s December 21, 2022 minutes. On March 4, 2023 the Master board voted, all yes, “to hire Micah Priest as the new Community Association Manager and Guest Registration Manager for TOPS’L Master,” with the outgoing manager supporting the transition. From that point the Master Association no longer shared a manager with the Summit.

Step three: the Summit hires its own, 2024. Preston resigned October 13, 2023, and Noelle Preseault became the Summit’s manager November 14, 2023. A contract amendment dated January 1, 2024 made the position a “Full time Association Manager” at “salary plus 24% burden rate.” A second amendment on January 1, 2025 added half of a part-time administrator shared with the Master. By 2024, then, each association was paying for a manager of its own where the two had once split one.

What the record does not show is whether the Summit board weighed other options at either step, such as sharing a manager with Captiva and Sierra Dunes or bidding the work. No bids appear in the Summit’s records from 2019 to 2026, no Summit minute records a vote on either amendment, and the current contract is dated June 2, 2026, four days after the board voted on May 29 to review the contract and consider taking bids.

The Master Association’s own management and accounting line moved the same way over the same years, from $28,428 in 2021 to $178,651 in 2025, with $227,613 budgeted for 2026. Summit owners pay a share of that through the quarterly Master assessment.

One line runs the other way. Since 2023 the Master Association has paid the Summit $30,000 a year to rent office space in the building, replacing the $47,360 a year Vacasa paid through September 2022. The 2025 audit books $29,345 of office rent as income. The Master board’s October 1, 2026 agenda listed a 2027 rent agreement with the Summit as new business.

Repairs and utilities

Operating repairs and maintenance, the day-to-day work paid from the operating fund rather than reserves, went from $190,970 in 2022 to $287,663 in 2025, which was $49,903 over that year’s budget. Utilities have barely moved: $274,127 in 2021, $305,740 in 2022, $296,859 in 2025. The 2026 budget carries utilities at $311,450 and operating repairs at $155,500.

How each budget passed

Florida law requires the board to adopt the budget at a noticed meeting that owners may attend. The minutes of the six budget meetings record the following.

They also record what was not said. The one recorded debate is in December 2020, when the board was shown two drafts and the discussion “centered on pay increases for the staff and whether or not now was the right time to increase the monthly assessments.” The higher draft carried 6 to 1, and the minutes do not name the no. From that meeting on, no director is recorded asking a question about a budget or voting against one. In December 2021 the only discussion was hourly wages. In December 2022, the 36 percent year, the two questions came from owners: whether holiday bonuses were in the budget, and whether the other associations shared the office cost. In December 2023 and December 2024 the minutes record no questions at all. In November 2025 the manager “opened the floor to Board members for discussion, with no Board members presenting any questions or comments,” and the budget carried with one abstention, for which no reason is recorded.

The other four budget meetings4 pages

Where it stands

The fund balance, the association’s cushion after all bills, was $124,360 at the end of 2021 and $37,578 at the end of 2022. At the end of 2023 it was a deficit of $113,346. It recovered to $194,179 in 2024 and to $332,469 at the end of 2025.

The 2025 operating surplus of $122,614 came almost entirely from one line: insurance was budgeted at $573,000 and cost $427,726. Repairs ran $49,903 over and interest $11,862 over; personnel and utilities came in under. With the replacement fund the total surplus was $162,622. Cash at year end was $1,657,518, of which $772,063 is restricted by law to structural reserves. During the year the association redeemed $1,457,783 of investments.

The other bill: $285 a quarter

Every Summit owner also pays the TOPS’L Master Association $285 a quarter. Its 2025 audit, by the same firm and dated September 21, 2026, is on the Master Association’s portal with a clean opinion and a letter to the board reporting no control deficiencies and no fraud. Revenue was $1,849,062 and the year ended with a deficit of $50,107 and a fund balance of $147,632. Guest registration fees brought in $478,971 against a budget of $418,876. Reserve spending was $291,492: $150,476 on the boardwalk, $114,600 on fountains and irrigation, $26,416 on the guardhouse and tram. Reserves on hand were $395,267 against a component table of $2,330,992. The audit also notes “litigation with a related entity over governance,” the Club’s suit, which is covered in The Paper Trail.