How should our HOA board split up the work among directors so one person isn't doing everything?

By OurHOA · General information · Revised October 31, 2026

How an HOA board splits work among directors: portfolios, one-page role sheets, spending limits, backups, open-meeting rules in TX, FL and CO, and a sample motion.

Part of the HOA board handbook: running the board.

The short answer

Give each director a portfolio, such as grounds, pool, finance or communications, and keep every decision that commits the association with the full board. The portfolio holder gathers bids, talks to the vendor, watches the budget line and brings a recommendation to the meeting. The board votes. Then the portfolio holder carries out what the board decided. This fixes the usual problem on a small board, where the president or treasurer ends up answering every email, meeting every vendor and burning out by the second year. Write each portfolio on one page, adopt the set by motion, name a backup for each one, and review the split once a year. Rules vary by state and by your governing documents, so read your bylaws before you adopt anything. This guide is general education, not legal advice.

What a portfolio holder can and cannot do

Under most nonprofit corporation laws a director has no authority alone. Power sits with the board acting together, and with officers or committees only as far as the bylaws or a board resolution give it to them. A portfolio is a work assignment, not a grant of power. If you want a group to make decisions in place of the board, that is a committee of the board, and state law sets the terms. Texas Business Organizations Code section 22.218 allows a committee with board authority only if the certificate of formation or bylaws provide for it, requires at least two members, and requires most of them to be directors. Section 22.219 covers committees without board authority, such as an advisory landscaping or social committee. Florida section 617.0825 says a committee needs at least two members, a majority of them directors, and it cannot fill board vacancies or amend the bylaws. Colorado section 7-128-206 bars a committee from electing or removing directors or changing the bylaws. All three states say the same thing in different words: handing work to a committee does not relieve directors of their own duties. Texas 22.218(c) and Colorado 7-128-206(5) both say so directly. The full board still answers for the result, so it has to keep watching the work.

Pick portfolios that match the work

List what actually takes time in your community before you draw lines. Go through last year's emails and invoices and sort them into piles. For a 26 to 150 home association, five portfolios usually cover it: 1. Finance: deposits, bill payment setup, monthly reports, budget draft, collections letters, the CPA and the tax return. Usually the treasurer. 2. Records and meetings: notices, agendas, minutes, records requests, the owner roster. Usually the secretary. 3. Grounds and maintenance: landscaping contract, irrigation, trees, fences, the monthly walk-through, owner work requests. 4. Amenities: pool or clubhouse vendor, keys and fobs, reservations, safety inspections. 5. Communications and owner relations: newsletter, website, welcome letters, the first reply to complaints. Architectural review and covenant enforcement often go to a committee instead of one director, because those decisions affect one owner's property and need a second set of eyes. A three-member board can merge portfolios 3 and 4 and 1 and 2. Count hours, not titles: if one portfolio takes eight hours a month and another takes one, move a task.

Write a one-page role sheet

Each portfolio gets one page the board adopts. Keep it short enough that a new director reads it in five minutes. It should say: - The portfolio name and the director who holds it, plus the backup. - The recurring tasks, with how often each one happens. - The vendors and contracts in the portfolio, with renewal dates. - The budget lines the portfolio watches. - What the holder may do alone, such as schedule a repair under a dollar limit or answer an owner question with a standard reply. - What must come to the board: new contracts, changes to rules, anything over the limit, any legal threat. - What the holder reports at each meeting, in two or three lines. - Where the files live, in a shared association account and not a personal inbox. A sample line for the grounds sheet: "Approve emergency irrigation and tree repairs up to $750 per event, report the repair and invoice at the next meeting, and bring any non-emergency work over $750 to the board with at least two bids." The dollar figure is yours to set. Pick one that covers a typical service call without letting one person sign a project.

Adopt the split by motion

Put the role sheets in the board packet and adopt them at an open meeting, so the minutes show who holds what and with which limits. Sample motion: "Motion to adopt the attached portfolio assignments and role sheets for 2027, effective today. Each portfolio holder may act alone only as stated on the role sheet. All contracts, rule changes and expenses above the stated limits require board approval. Assignments remain in effect until the board changes them." If you also create a committee, use a separate resolution that names the members, says whether it decides or only recommends, and states its limits. Texas 22.219 and Florida 617.0825(1) both call for a board resolution, and Colorado 7-128-206(2) requires approval by a majority of the directors in office unless the bylaws say otherwise. Spending caps must fit inside any limits your bylaws already set. Our guide on what to do when the president signs contracts without board approval covers what happens when someone acts past those limits.

Backups, shared files and open meetings

Every portfolio needs a named backup who has the vendor contacts, the login to any portal, and a copy of the role sheet. Volunteers move, get sick and travel. When the grounds director is out of the country during a broken main line, the backup handles it without searching through a personal email account. Share information across the whole board. Colorado section 38-33.3-303(1)(b) gives every board member access to all information about the association that any other board member obtains, including monthly expense reports, contracts and communications with the manager, attorney or accountant. Even where the law is silent, treat it as the rule. A portfolio is not private territory. Watch open-meeting rules when portfolio holders work together. Colorado section 38-33.3-308(2)(a) opens all executive board meetings and meetings of any board committee to owners. Florida section 720.303(2)(a) applies its open-meeting rules to a committee that will make a final decision on spending association funds. In Texas, section 209.0051(b) defines a board meeting as deliberation by a quorum of the board on association business, so on a five-member board, three directors working through pool contract details by phone is a problem, while two is not.

A first-year timeline

Month 1, at the organizational meeting after the election: hand out a blank role sheet, ask each director which portfolio they want and how many hours a month they can give, and assign a drafter for each sheet. Month 2: directors draft their sheets with the outgoing holder's notes. The board adopts them by motion and names backups. Month 3: move vendor contacts, logins and files into shared association accounts. Months 4 to 11: each holder gives a short written report in the board packet before every meeting. Month 6: the board spends ten minutes asking whether any portfolio is overloaded or idle and moves tasks if needed. Month 12: each holder updates their sheet with what changed, so the next director starts with a current page instead of a blank one.

Mistakes that bring the old problem back

The most common one is letting a portfolio become a fiefdom. The grounds director picks a new landscaper and tells the board afterward. Fix it in the role sheet: new contracts always go to a vote. Other mistakes come up often. The board assigns portfolios by title and gives the treasurer finance, records and the pool because nobody else spoke up. Ask for hours, not volunteers. Nobody names backups, so a single resignation drops a whole area of work. Holders keep files in personal email, and when they leave the board, the association loses its vendor history; our new board member orientation checklist covers the handoff. Reports are spoken at the meeting and never written down, so the minutes show nothing. And the board never revisits the split, so the director who took the easy portfolio in year one still has it in year three while someone else does the work.

Sources

These guides are general education for HOA boards and residents, not legal, tax, or financial advice. Rules vary by state and by your community's governing documents - check with a professional for your situation.

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