HOA Year-End Landscape Budget Closeout

I’ve worked with HOA boards and commercial property managers across Pickaway, Franklin, and Fairfield counties for more than ten years, and the last week of November is when the better-run associations start their landscape budget closeout. The worst-run ones do not start until late January, which is too late. By February, every reputable local contractor is already booking 2027 capacity and the boards calling around in March for proposals get the leftover bids from the operators with too much time on their hands.

This is the closeout sequence I run my own commercial clients through, and what I tell board members who ask how to do this right.

When should our HOA start the year-end landscape budget review?

Start the formal review the last week of November and have a draft 2027 scope and bid package ready to go out by the second week of December. That timing gets you ahead of the contractor bidding season, gives boards time to review proposals in January, and puts the signed contracts in place before the March pricing pressure starts.

The HOAs that do this well treat the year-end review as a structured process: actuals against budget, scope-of-work review, contractor performance review, and 2027 priorities. The ones that struggle treat it as a single 90-minute board meeting in February where someone says “the lawn looked fine, let’s renew.”

For a Canal Winchester HOA I bid in 2024, the board started their review November 28 the prior year. By December 18 they had a complete RFP out to four contractors. By January 22 they had selected. The contract was signed and effective March 1, and the spring transition was completely uneventful. The previous year (before they tightened the process) they signed a contract April 14 and had a six-week gap in spring service while the new vendor scrambled to onboard.

What should we actually review?

Five categories, in this order:

1. Budget actuals against the line items. Pull the year’s actual landscape spending and lay it against the budget. Identify line items that overran, line items that came in under, and any one-time spending that was not in the original budget (storm cleanup, dead tree removal, irrigation repairs).

The point is not to penalize the contractor for overruns. The point is to understand whether the budget was set realistically. Most HOA landscape budgets are set by tradition rather than by current pricing, and lines that have been understated for five years compound into mid-season surprises.

2. Contractor performance. Honest review against the contract scope. What got done on time? What slipped? Were communications responsive? Did the contractor flag issues proactively, or only when problems became visible to residents? If you cannot answer those questions easily, your contract is missing reporting requirements.

3. Resident feedback log. If your association tracks resident complaints and compliments separately for landscape work, pull that data. If you do not track it, start now. A simple shared spreadsheet with columns for date, address, issue, and resolution date is enough.

4. Scope-of-work changes for 2027. What is the property going to need next year that the current scope does not cover? Common items: aging trees that need professional evaluation, beds that have outgrown the original install, irrigation zones that need redesign, turf renovation areas.

5. Capital projects versus operating. Some landscape work is operating spend (mowing, weekly maintenance, seasonal cleanups). Some is capital spend (major bed renovations, tree removal and replacement, hardscape work). Year-end is when boards should be deciding which 2027 projects belong in operating versus a capital reserve draw.

How do we get accurate 2027 pricing?

Three approaches, and most well-run HOAs use a combination:

Renew with current contractor at a CPI-indexed adjustment. If your current contractor is performing well, the simplest renewal is a flat percentage increase tied to a real index. Central Ohio landscape labor and material costs have been running about 4-6% annual inflation since 2022. A 4% renewal usually represents fair pricing for both sides if the relationship is healthy. The contract should specify the index source (CPI-U for the Midwest region, or a specific producer price index for landscape services).

Solicit competitive bids on a refreshed scope. Every 2-3 years, even with a contractor performing well, bid the work competitively. This keeps pricing honest and surfaces ideas your current contractor may not have proposed. You do not have to switch contractors to benefit from competitive bidding; the data alone is valuable.

Get a separate quote for major scope changes. If 2027 includes a significant new project (a $15,000 entry monument refresh, a half-acre lawn renovation), bid that separately from the maintenance contract. Bundling them lets the contractor hide pricing in the bigger number.

For a Grove City HOA I work with, we run the maintenance contract on a 3-year term with annual CPI adjustments, and they bid major projects ($5,000+) separately. That structure gives them pricing stability for the predictable work and competitive pricing on the variable work. Worth modeling.

What’s a fair contract increase for 2027?

Honest answer based on the central Ohio market: 4-6% on most maintenance contracts is the realistic range. Labor costs are up across construction trades, fuel is volatile, and equipment replacement costs have outpaced general inflation for three straight years.

OSU Extension does not publish landscape labor cost indexes (it is outside their work), but the USDA and BLS data on agricultural and construction labor in Ohio both support that range. Any contractor proposing a flat renewal (0% increase) is either subsidizing the relationship out of their margin or planning to under-deliver. Any contractor proposing 10%+ should have a specific reason (significant scope expansion, major equipment upgrade requirement, prior years of below-market pricing).

For a Lancaster HOA renewal I worked on last fall, the previous contractor had held pricing flat for four years, then proposed a 22% increase for year five. The board was understandably alarmed. The honest conversation was that the contractor had been undercharging for three years and was trying to catch up in one move. The board ended up doing two annual 11% increases instead, which was more digestible and reflected the actual market position.

How do we structure the 2027 scope of work?

A good HOA landscape scope document covers these elements explicitly:

• Service frequency. Mowing visits per month, fertilizer applications per year, mulch refresh frequency, bed maintenance frequency, pruning schedule.
• Property zones. A map or photo-based identification of zones (entry area, common turf, retention basins, individual unit landscaping if covered). Different zones often need different service levels.
• Performance standards. What does “acceptable mowing height” mean specifically? What turf density triggers renovation? What weed pressure level requires treatment? Vague language causes disputes.
• Communication protocols. Reporting cadence, single point of contact, response time SLAs, escalation path.
• Change order process. How are out-of-scope requests handled? What is the markup on materials? What is the labor rate for non-contract work?
• Insurance and licensing. Minimum coverages and proof requirements.

For a Bexley commercial complex contract I wrote last year, the scope document was 14 pages and covered all of the above. The property manager called it the easiest landscape contract she had ever administered because every question had an answer in the document. That is the goal.

What about the smaller HOAs?

For HOAs under 30 units, this level of formality is often overkill. The practical version:

• A one-page scope of work that lists what gets done and how often
• A clear monthly or annual price
• A primary contact and a backup on each side
• An honest annual review meeting in November

I service several small HOAs in Pickaway and Ross counties on exactly this structure. The simplicity works because the trust is direct and the scope fits on a page. What does not change is the timing: the November review still matters, even on a one-page contract.

What should the 2027 capital plan include?

Common landscape capital items HOAs should be thinking about for next year:

• Tree assessment. If your community has trees over 30 years old, get an ISA-certified arborist assessment. Failing trees are an insurance liability. Budget removal and replacement on a 5-year rotating basis.
• Irrigation audit. Sprinkler systems lose efficiency every year. A professional audit catches broken heads, mis-rotated zones, and wasted water. Pays for itself in 1-2 years on most properties.
• Bed renovation. Original developer beds are usually overcrowded by year 10-15. Plan a phased renovation of the worst beds rather than waiting until they all fail at once.
• Hardscape repair. Cracked walks, settled pavers, retaining wall maintenance. Defer too long and the cost compounds.
• Turf renovation. Compacted clay common areas need aeration and overseed renovation every 3-5 years.

The mistake I see most often is HOAs that defer all of the above into a single huge “we need to do something” project in year 12. By then the bill is six figures. Phased over five years it would have been routine.

Quick HOA year-end landscape checklist

• Run budget actuals against line items by December 5
• Document contractor performance against scope
• Pull resident feedback log
• Identify 2027 scope changes and capital items
• Bid competitively every 2-3 years, otherwise CPI-renew
• Finalize 2027 contract by mid-February
• Build a 5-year capital plan, not annual fire drills

Want a written quote on 2027 commercial work?

Lawn Harmony Landscaping handles HOA, commercial, and multi-family landscape contracts across Pickaway, Franklin, Fairfield, Ross, and Fayette counties. We are locally owned and operated, licensed and insured, with a 5.0-star Google rating, and we bid in writing with transparent scope.

Call 614-425-9789 or email Lawnharmonyohio@gmail.com for a free written quote. Commercial properties can request a walkthrough at /quote/commercial. Residential estimates available at quick-mow-quote.emergent.host.

For 2027 planning, see our lawn mowing service, landscaping service, and fall leaf cleanup service pages.

Service area: Circleville, Columbus, Grove City, Bexley, Upper Arlington, Pickerington, Canal Winchester, Groveport, Lancaster, Baltimore, Chillicothe, Washington Court House, and Jeffersonville.