The first three to four years were the most difficult for making decisions about how much money was needed to operate the community. We had limited historical data on which to base our projections,. Also, since we were still focused on completing old and new projects, we tended to project higher budgets and would find ourselves with a surplus at the end of the year. The question we faced in the next year was whether to roll the surplus into lowering next year’s cost or maintaining the surplus to complete the projects. We chose the latter option in the early years. After repeating this pattern for two to three years, it was agreed to not budget money for projects until the energy was available to do them. Budgeting was difficult and time-consuming in those early years. For the last three years, budgets have been approved with relative ease.