Another way to reduce phone contact/costs, as our own strata manager points out, is that the strata committee should use one of its position holders as the single point of contact to the strata manager on committee decisions/matters. Then they don’t get extra calls and potential variations on what the committee has decided from multiple members that they then need to call and cross-check between.
That’s not to say they’re not gouging fees from you … but it might be less easy to hide the gouging if you reduce the costs as much as possible.
In the first instance, as David said, you can at least ask what the cost covers which will also let them know you’re watching them.