GailD
to understand where the money is spent you do need to examine the accounts.
Ive been a treasurer of a number of strata, and get lots of “ advice “ from owners that this or that expense is too high. I ask these owners to find cheaper services, which inevitably they decline to do.
It takes a lot of time to send out requests for tender, receive them and then examine them. Most strata managers and committees don’t have the time to do this.
The other item you need to look at is the capital works fund. Maybe the strata manager or the committee considered the fund to be under capitalised and decided to have catch up levies.