MINUTES
OF MEETING
CORAL
SPRINGS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT
A
meeting of the Board of Supervisors of the Coral Springs Improvement District
was held on
Present and constituting a quorum
were:
Robert Fennell President
Sharon Zich Vice President
Glenn Hanks Secretary
Also present were:
Ken Cassel District
Manager
Edward Goscicki Co-Manager
-
Dan Daly Interim
Manager
Susan F. Delegal District
Counsel
Jane Early CH2M Hill
Sean Skehan CH2M Hill
Cory Johnson CH2M Hill
Daniel Bohorquez CH2M
Hill
John McKune District Capital
Improvement Coordinator
Jim Aversa CSID
Doug Hyche CSID
Randy Fredericks CSID
Drainage Supervisor
Kay Woodward CSID Accountant
Jan Zilmer CSID Human Resources
Brenda Schurz
Pamela Rower
Kim Prenter
Sandra Demarco
FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS Roll Call
Mr.
Goscicki called the meeting to order and called the roll.
SECOND
ORDER OF BUSINESS Approval
of the Minutes of the March 17, 2008 Meeting
Mr. Fennell stated each Board member
received a copy of the minutes of the
Ms. Delegal stated Mr. Lyles had
some comments. I am sitting in for Mr.
Lyles today as your legal counsel. On
the minutes of the March 17, 2008 meeting at 3:00 p.m., if you go to page 20
under the attorney’s report, there are a couple of matters he asked me to
clarify on his behalf. The initial
statement states, “Mr. Lyles stated they are trying to convert us to Chapter
192.” He wants me to clarify there is no
attempt to convert us. I think one of
the issues the Board had discussed was whether or not to potentially convert to
a Chapter 190 District. It should be
clarified to state there was discussion regarding the potential conversion to a
Chapter 190 District. If we make that
statement, the rest of it flows well.
Along the same lines in the second
paragraph where it states, “The state will likely object to this.” I do not believe he thinks the state will
object. I think it is a decision this
Board can make. We can discuss this
later on because I have done a comparison for you with regard to this
potential.
Mr. Hanks stated so that line should
be struck from the minutes.
Ms. Delegal stated I think so.
On MOTION by Mr. Hanks seconded by Mr. Fennell with all in
favor the minutes of the
THIRD
ORDER OF BUSINESS Supervisors’
Requests and Audience Comments
Mr.
Fennell stated I gather there is no particular item before us. Did anything come in, which I am not aware
of?
Mr.
Goscicki stated we moved this item up to the front of the agenda when we had a
number of people coming to the meetings to give their input to the Board. When we have members of the public here it is
good to have them say their piece and not keep them hanging around for an
extended period of time. I do not see
any general public here today.
Mr.
Fennell asked are there any audience comments?
There
not being any,
Mr.
Fennell asked are there any Supervisors’ Requests?
Mr.
Hanks responded I am going to tie them in later under the Engineer’s
report.
Mr.
Goscicki asked do you want us to move this item back to the end of the agenda?
Mr.
Hanks responded I think it is good at the front.
FOURTH ORDER OF BUSINESS Discussion of Pension
Plan Options
Mr.
Goscicki stated the last time this came up for discussion there were a couple
of options. The budget which was put
together this year funded an 8% contribution.
The current policy is for a 6% contribution. There was discussion looking at what an 8%
contribution would mean in terms of benefits to the employees and cost to the
District. The Board was shying away from
an 8% contribution and looking to stay at a 6% contribution for this benefit
plan. I believe you asked staff to look
into a matching benefit plan.
Mr.
Zilmer stated we spoke to The Hartford Group and talked about converting our 457
plan to a 401A where the employer can make matching contributions. We are pondering this considering the fact we
are losing revenue from water because there will be additional administrative
fees. We are already paying
administrative fees for our current plan.
Now we are going to incur additional administrative fees for the 401A
plan. The other issue is how to
calculate what it is going to cost the District. If we try to do a comparison based on current
employees who are in the plan, what happens if the other employees decide they
want to participate? In order to be able
to determine how much it can affect the District, you have to calculate every
employee you have. The bottom line is it
will be expensive.
Mr.
Hanks stated you are saying from a time commitment from our staff to figure out
how much it is going to cost.
Mr.
Zilmer stated no. The overall expense to
the District is going to be greater than just increasing the contribution you
currently have. You cannot budget for
this.
Mr.
Hanks stated you can still budget. We
can put an allocation or a line item in the budget. If it does not get used, it is fine. I assume we are going to have the current
retirement plan continue on in its present form and this 401A will be a
supplementary endeavor.
Mr.
Zilmer stated that is correct.
Mr.
Fennell asked how many employees do we have covered under the current plan?
Mr.
Zilmer responded we have 58 current employees.
In the 457 plan, which is a voluntary plan, we have approximately 20
employees who are enrolled in it.
Everyone is enrolled in the Money Purchase Pension Plan. The other 38 employees are relying completely
on these contributions as a source for their retirement.
Mr.
Hanks asked is the Money Purchase Plan the 6% contribution?
Mr.
Zilmer responded that is correct?
Mr.
Fennell stated so there are 58.
Mr.
Zilmer stated there are some people who have not met the qualification dates
yet. If we stay with the Money Purchase
Pension Plan and increase it by 2%, it will bear $50,000.
Ms.
Zich asked how many of these employees are just CSID?
Mr.
Zilmer responded all of them.
Ms.
Zich stated none of them are shared with NSID.
Mr.
Zilmer stated yes, but they are CSID employees.
Ms.
Zich asked does NSID share the cost?
Mr.
Zilmer responded they have their own employees, but in the shared personnel
breakdown they share this.
Mr.
Fennell asked is our action for the employees contingent upon NSID approving
it?
Mr.
Zilmer responded no.
Ms.
Zich stated part of the administrative cost for this will go to NSID.
Mr.
Goscicki stated “shared employees” is not the correct terminology for us to
describe this. We used to have truly
shared employees where half the salary was paid by CSID and half of the salary
was paid by NSID. A few of them received
two paychecks and in some cases they received three paychecks. We cleaned all of this up approximately a
year and a half ago. Those employees are
now 100% CSID employees. They are paid
by CSID. They charge their time to these
other districts and you recover a percentage of their cost.
Ms.
Zich stated so we recover everything.
Mr.
Hanks stated we recover everything because they are still working for the
District. They are only allocating a
part of their time.
Ms.
Zich stated any expense we have for NSID we get reimbursed for.
Mr.
Zilmer stated we take the total expense for the employee, which includes
workers compensation, and make a determination on the percentage that would
apply to NSID.
Mr.
Fennell stated there are 58 employees who are in the Money Purchase Pension
Plan. What is the other plan 20 of them
are in?
Mr.
Zilmer responded it is through The Hartford Group and it is called 457. It is similar to a 401K.
Mr.
Fennell stated that is a volunteer plan.
Mr.
Zilmer stated it is a volunteer plan.
Mr.
Fennell asked are we matching anything into that?
Mr.
Zilmer responded no.
Ms.
Zich asked do we have administrative costs for it?
Mr.
Zilmer responded no. All of those are
passed on to the participant, which is the employee.
Mr.
Hanks asked what if we move to a 401A?
Mr.
Zilmer responded we will incur administrative costs. There is a $400 annual fee and an additional
$20 a year per participant.
Mr.
Hanks stated we are not talking that much.
We could be talking approximately $2,000.
Mr.
Zilmer stated for administrative fees.
Because we are not for profit we do not qualify for the typical plans
out there. This 457 plan was designed
for our type of industry.
Mr.
Fennell stated so we have a 457 and we can start a 401A.
Mr.
Zilmer stated we can do a conversion.
Mr.
Fennell asked will people lose any money?
Mr.
Zilmer responded no.
Mr.
Fennell stated but you cannot contribute to a 457.
Mr.
Zilmer stated the employer cannot, nor in the Money Purchase Pension Plan. We ultimately have to come up with a
different type of plan.
Mr.
Hanks stated we can probably put a cap on what we contribute so it does not
blow our budget out of the water; dollar for dollar contribution up to a
maximum cap.
Mr.
Fennell stated the idea was to do a couple of different things here. One was to make the job more attractive. Secondly, to make sure people are putting
aside the amount of money they need for retirement. I still think we will want to pursue the
understanding of a conversion from a 457 to a 401A. I assume people will be foolish not to
contribute. If someone is going to match
funds, the first thing you always do is take the maximum amount you can get.
Mr.
Hanks asked do we have input from other people as far as what the experience
has been in other districts making contributions and what percentage enrolls?
Mr.
Goscicki responded there are very few other districts with a sizable amount of
district employees. There are probably
three or four around the state we are familiar with who have a similar amount
of employees. In most districts the
employees are outsourced. The only other
district I can think of offhand with a comparable set up is St. Lucie West and
I am not sure what they are doing on their pension plan. It is probably the same 6% it has been
because of the set up by Severn Trent.
Mr. Zilmer administered it for several years. A good next step for staff to do is come back
to the Board with how we will administer this program. Mr. Zilmer makes a good point in terms of how
you put a budget together. We are in the
process of putting a budget together. We
will need to define an enrollment period where people will have to sign
up. There will be enrollment criteria
that you need to be an employee for a certain period of time. We will have to come back to the Board with
the best way to resolve the administrative issues.
Mr.
Hanks stated the 401A will be based on a calendar year with the IRS since it is
based on the employees’ taxes, whereas ours’ is a fiscal year from October 1 to
September 30. We are going to have one
year in the span of two years. I agree
the 401A is the way we should be going to encourage our employees to help pay
for their retirement.
Mr.
Fennell stated report back to us at another time on this.
Ms.
Woodward asked are we attesting to do this retroactively from the beginning of
this year, start mid year or start at the beginning of the next fiscal
year? This will determine how we put
together the information you need and also how we go forward with the
budget.
Ms.
Zich stated next month is already May.
Mr.
Fennell stated I would say fiscal year 2009.
Ms.
Woodward stated we still have the issue of 6% versus 8% for the current year.
Ms.
Zich stated no. We thought we were going
to get an increase in our salaries, but it did not go through. It is the same thing as this. You had the 8%, but it did not go
through. It is still at 6%.
FIFTH ORDER OF BUSINESS Appointment of
District Manager
Mr. Fennell stated at this point Severn Trent is proposing
Mr.
Ms.
Zich stated I have not.
Mr.
Hanks stated no. I realized I had
checked a “to be completed” flag on one of my emails on Friday afternoon around
Mr.
Fennell stated we have Mr. Cassel’s resume before us. I will give you my summary. He obviously has a great deal of experience
both in government as well as development.
He worked as an assistant city manager.
He has also worked for Lennar. He
has a great deal of different experiences with different kinds of programs. He has a Bachelors of Business Administration
and a Masters of Public Administration.
As far as understanding operations and utilities, not so much the
details of utilities but how groups operate within the city or the state, he
knows this.
If
we are looking at the area of expertise we need, we obviously have good
operating skills within our own group.
The area we always need to be watching out for is how we interface with
local city and state governments as well as different people who are always
checking on what we are doing. This is
what Severn Trent brings to the District and it is what we want the manager to
do. I think he has these capabilities. The other thing we hope Severn Trent will
bring is some wider expertise we can call on for them to do inspections and see
how we are doing as well as give us advice.
It has always a bit of an irritation when you already feel you are doing
a great job, but as we all know there is always another viewpoint which can
help us out. I see a good match
there. I propose we make it a year to
year thing. He and I went over the
history of our organization, people coming and going.
Mr.
Goscicki stated we had our challenges at Severn Trent a couple of years back
with turnover of managers and most recently a year ago. It was our decision a year ago. Prior to that people were starting up
competing companies or deciding to do other things. It has been the challenge we had and this
Board has patiently worked with us on managers leaving. In this situation that is not the case. We are going to do an orderly and systematic
transition. I am still part of Severn
Trent. I am here to support Mr. Cassel
in this transition and I will continue to support this Board in any way
needed. This is not like our previous
transitions where the new manager had to come in and scramble overnight to try
to get up to speed with the issues and challenges of what is going on.
Ms.
Zich asked how long will you be available to help Mr. Cassel?
Mr.
Goscicki responded as long as Mr. Cassel wants me to help.
Mr.
Fennell stated Mr. Cassel has the background experience. He may not know our particular operation, but
he is qualified to come into this position.
He had to work for boards before and different managers so he knows the
peculiarities. I am sure he can do the
job. I think he has also dealt in
organizations where there are strong operational groups within the
organization. Before we decide on this
there is a CSID proposed organization sheet in the agenda package.
Mr.
Goscicki stated it is under the Manager’s resport.
Mr.
Daly stated it is similar to what we described in the scope of services Mr.
Goscicki put out.
Mr.
Fennell stated looking at Mr. Daly’s position, it essentially creates a
position you have been temporarily filling called Director of Operations. We do not have this position, but I think we
do need to create it. It divides all the
people into two different groups; those who are direct employees of CSID and
those services such as legal and engineering.
I
want to see Mr. Daly and Mr. Cassel get together on this. I do think we need a Director of
Operations. I would like to create this
position. I do see the Director of
Operations reporting to the District Manager.
At the end you need to have a chain of command and you have to be able
to make decisions. On the other hand you
need strong feedback from people in your staff.
Ms.
Zich stated I do not know about this. I
thought Mr. Daly and Mr. Goscicki were sharing the responsibilities. This is why I was surprised when we got Mr.
Daly down here.
Mr.
Fennell stated they kind of came to this conclusion a few months back.
Ms.
Zich stated I thought it worked well with Mr. Goscicki and Mr. Daly.
Mr.
Goscicki stated it is very much a shared role in terms of the actual carrying
out of duties. The Director of
Operations is like the Chief Operating Officer in the front of a company. The role we take on is as the Chief Executive
Officer of a company. There is a
hierarchy, but there is also a division of responsibilities. We are not doing Mr. Daly’s job and Mr. Daly
is not doing Severn Trent’s job. There
is still a reporting relationship as Mr. Fennell said, you need a chain of
command and lines of authority for ultimate decisions.
Ms.
Zich asked how often will Mr. Cassel and Mr. Daly get together?
Mr.
Goscicki responded they will get together in person more often than Mr. Daly
and I did. We talked at least weekly and
communicated through email on a regular basis.
We met at least once or twice a month.
Mr.
Fennell stated we are looking for more participation. I talked to Mr. Cassel about this. What we do not want to see happen from our
viewpoint of Severn Trent is the managers get stretched to a point where they
are managing many districts. We do not
see our piece of the person here often enough to actually call him boss. He just seems to be a step-in General. That is not good enough. We need him onsite at least a couple of days
a week.
Mr.
Hanks stated we want you to feel comfortable enough to say to us as a Board,
“Hey, I do not like how this is happening” or “Here, I think you can do this
better.” Sometimes, in the past, things
have been swept under the rug or hidden from our view. Let us know the good, the bad and the ugly. We have been through it all.
Mr.
Mr.
Goscicki stated Mr. Cassel will be living here and not
Mr.
Daly stated this will post a couple of questions for me. What are your expectations for me? Where do my responsibilities start and
stop? Last month in the meeting Mr.
Fennell said some of the areas Severn Trent had to provide leadership in were
some of the areas we are lacking such as finance, recording and etcetera. I think the oversight with regard to the
operations part of it as far as performance, inspections and things like that
we talked about. I will need to know
where it starts and stops. Mr. Cassel
may come in and say something is better off in a certain way. I will be happy to listen, but there may be
times when we have an opposing outcome.
There are different ways to look at things. If this is the way the Board wants it, it
will be perfectly fine as long as it is outlined and we know what is going on;
otherwise, it is very frustrating.
Ms.
Zich asked is Mr. Cassel going to be working in this office or at the Severn
Trent office?
Mr.
Goscicki responded both.
Mr.
Cassel stated I will be here several days a week.
Ms.
Zich asked how many other districts are you responsible for?
Mr.
Cassel responded right now I am responsible for three; CSID, NSID and
PTWCD.
Mr.
Hanks stated I like the way things have been working where Mr. Daly, for the
most part, was running things here on the ground. If I am taking the nature of your question
correctly, you are wondering about the new structure we are looking at now.
Mr.
Daly stated Mr. Petty could be sitting here everyday like he had been and
everything went through Mr. Petty, which was fine. As long as we know that is what is supposed
to happen.
Mr.
Goscicki stated when Mr. Daly and I went through and worked out our scope of
services, which we gave to the Board a couple of months ago for your approval,
it was predicated on this framework. We
are going to have someone in Mr. Daly who will run the day to day operations of
the District. We saw the Board was
looking for a District employee on the ground full-time to manage the daily
operations and Severn Trent providing more of a senior level management, the
fiscal services, records management, the general oversight policy development,
overseeing the engineer and the capital planning program. That is how our scope was developed and it is
what the Board approved a couple of months ago.
Mr. Daly is still officially the manager of the UB Department. Unofficially, he has been doing this job for
you for the last year. We feel with the
Board’s approval of our contract and locking this scope down, it is time to
recognize what Mr. Daly is actually doing, get this position formally created
by this Board and if there is any personnel actions we need to take to
recognize Mr. Daly’s role in this, to do it.
This was brought to you as clean up work based upon the decisions the
Board has already made with our contract.
We need to clean this up, get this aligned and create this
position. We will need to create a
position description if the Board approves this and provide the details Mr.
Daly is asking for.
Mr.
Hanks stated let us go through a couple of different hypothetical
scenarios. The engineer comes forward
with recommendations for the wastewater plant because they anticipate future
requirements coming down from DEP. Where
does this go? Where does the first step
go in terms of the idea?
Mr.
Goscicki responded the first stop is actually with Mr. Hyche and Mr.
McKune. The engineer is working with
them on a routine basis in terms of getting their input and feedback as to how
these things work within the existing organization. At a certain point, this is how we have
worked. I will use the nanofiltration
plant as an example. At a certain point
when the engineer was getting ready to start walking down and set the design it
was brought up to another level where both Mr. Daly and I got involved. We sat down and went through it. We both had different inputs to it. Ultimately it was resolved at a meeting with
all the parties involved and decided what we were going to recommend to the
Board.
Mr.
Hanks asked when there are major differences in opinion, how are those going to
be resolved?
Mr.
Goscicki responded if there are major differences, this Board had made it
abundantly clear you are not looking for Severn Trent to be here in a
hierarchical oligarchic kind of role.
This is a team environment. If
Severn Trent and your Director of Operations do not agree on what needs to be
done, we have to bring all of the options before the Board. Here are the options in front of you. Here is the rational we are looking at. Here are some of the viewpoints from
staff. Here are the viewpoints we bring
to the table. I do not think we will
ever be in a position on a major policy or a major issue saying, “No Mr.
Daly. I am the manager. I do not care what you say. This is the way it is going to be done.”
Mr.
Daly stated it has not happened. We have
had opposing views on different things.
My view gets on the table and Mr. Goscicki’s gets on the table. It either gets resolved, it gets pushed off
until later on or it comes before the Board.
Mr.
Fennell stated I think we do need to create this position of Director of
Operations. I am actually going to
charge Mr. Daly and Mr. Cassel with doing it.
You actually get to define your own job.
You still have a book. You still
have to be able to defend your position.
Mr.
Hanks stated just like Mr. Cassel does.
Mr.
Fennell stated you have to define what you are going to be doing on a day to
day basis, what the job incurs and who reports to you. On the other hand, having a boss you have to
be able to defend what you are doing.
You have to come forward with proposals.
You have to have a vision for what is going to happen and you have to be
able to take inputs back and forth. You
have to be able to have this kind of working position.
Mr.
Hanks stated I think hiring and firing should remain with the Director of
Operations.
Mr.
Fennell stated yes, probably on a normal basis.
Mr.
Goscicki stated that is the way our contract is structured. It states all of the District employees
report to and are hired by the Director of Operations.
Mr.
Fennell stated firing is always an issue, which involves more than just one
person. It gets complicated, but
certainly the Director of Operations should do the reviews and is the key to
personnel issues. Of course, you have to
be reviewed as well.
Mr.
Hanks asked does this address your concerns at the moment?
Mr.
Daly responded I want to point out a statement made a few months ago, which is
true. We are running parallel in our
positions. One of us wins a race one
time and the other another. It may have
been counterproductive. On the other
hand, it may have improved the other person.
Mr.
Hanks stated you can still run side by side and pull your fair share. It works.
It may take us a little longer to reach decisions, but in the end any
discussions we have are with the intention of producing better results. You all know my number or our President’s
number. If there are concerns, we are an
approachable Board. Let us just leave it
at that.
Ms.
Zich asked are we going to continue on with this or is this coming back?
Mr.
Fennell responded there are two key positions right now which Mr. Daly and Mr.
Cassel have to decide on.
Ms.
Zich asked who is Mr. Bloom?
Mr.
Goscicki responded Mr. Bloom is our lead accountant.
Mr.
Hanks stated he has been here sitting in the back a couple of times.
Ms.
Zich stated I do not think I have ever met him.
It says he does our budget and analysis.
Mr.
Goscicki stated yes.
Ms.
Zich stated I thought Ms. Woodward did that.
Mr.
Goscicki stated the budget is prepared by Ms. Woodward and reviewed and analyzed
by Mr. Bloom. It is one of the checks
and balances we built in where Ms. Woodward is doing your day to day accounting
and Mr. Bloom’s job is to provide overview and analysis along with Ms. Rower
who is sitting right here.
Ms.
Zich stated I would not have been surprised if it was Ms. Rower, but I do not
know who Mr. Bloom is.
Ms.
Rower stated Mr. Bloom’s position is below me if you look at the Severn Trent
hierarchy. When information comes to us
Mr. Bloom reviews it because he is the accounting manager who reviews all of
our districts, but I review CSID in addition to his review.
Ms.
Zich stated I did not know Mr. Bloom did this.
I never met him. He may have been
here.
Mr.
Goscicki stated he is very quiet.
Mr.
Fennell asked so what is it we need to do here?
Mr.
Goscicki responded this organization chart is really how we currently
operate. This is a reflection of the way
things are actually operated today.
Ms.
Delegal stated we have been in discussions regarding the actual text of the agreement. We know you have arrived at a compensation
package as well as the scope of services which have been referred to during the
meeting. We are working on the front end
of the agreement. There have been some
negotiations on it. We spent several hours
on this on Friday. I am going to
anticipate at the next meeting, we both had a few things we were going to go
back and check on, we will bring to you a document; either one we both agree on
or if there are a few decision points we are going to present to you, we will
point it out. It will be an opportunity
to think about this more and address it when you actually see the scope of
services attached to the document.
Mr.
Fennell asked should we make a decision today or not?
Ms.
Delegal responded you will be able to decide and then revisit it again when we
bring the final contract to you.
Mr.
Goscicki stated there are two parallel decisions. One is, who is your District Manager? Right now we have an existing contract with
the District. We are operating on our
old contract, which has been in place since 1992. What the Board approved two months ago is a
new scope and fee. We are essentially
operating under the new scope and fee even though we have yet to execute a new
revised contract with new terms and conditions on the front end. Essentially we are operating under this. We started billing you based upon it, which
is a reduction in our fee from our old contract. We are essentially operating under this
purview now. Regardless of whether or
not the contract is modified, we still have the issue of me transitioning to
Mr. Cassel as your new District manager.
Whether he is working under our old contract, new contract or some
modification, it is a separate issue from the transition from me to Mr. Cassel.
The
other issue is this Board has agreed conceptually that it wants to have a
Director of Operations who oversees all the District employees and not have
four on paper. A year ago Mr. Frederick
reported to me, Mr. McKune reported to me, Mr. Hyche reported to me, Mr. Zilmer
reported to me and Mr. Daly reported to me.
That was how it was officially structured on paper. The reality is we moved to this organization
approximately six months ago where all the District employees report to Mr.
Daly. It is important to formalize this
relationship because it is not right to have your employee continue to operate
in this role without some recognition of his authority. If the Board wants to tweak some of the
relationships in the contract, they can do it anytime they want.
Mr.
Fennell stated so you are saying we should make a decision.
Mr.
Goscicki stated I would like you to pass a motion officially appointing Mr.
Cassel as your new District manager for Severn Trent.
On MOTION by Mr. Hanks seconded by Mr. Fennell with all in
favor Mr. Cassel was appointed the District manager for the Coral Springs
Improvement District and the Board requested a report in six months with regard
to Mr. Cassel’s progress.
Mr.
Fennell stated for the next meeting we would like you, Mr. Cassel, to come back
to us with a proposal for the Director of Operations where you and Mr. Daly sit
down and define what those paths are and are not. I assume also including some of the
discussions going on here with our legal staff should have a bearing on
it. Somehow out of that comes whatever
it is that job picks up versus what our new contract talks about.
On MOTION by Mr. Hanks seconded by Mr. Fennell with all in
favor the Board requested Mr. Cassel present the Board with a proposal of the
job description for the Director of Operations.
Mr.
Fennell stated the other thing, Mr. Cassel, make sure there are not any more
shared employees and employees are either CSID or not. We certainly want to continue keeping our
employees employed by other groups. That
is one of the things we are going to insist upon Severn Trent. You need to help us sell our services to
other districts in order for us to contain our size.
Mr.
Daly asked may I make a suggestion that NSID and CSID enter into an agreement
with this budget season coming up so we have something formalized?
Ms.
Zich responded I think it is a great idea.
Mr.
Goscicki stated it was started. Mr. Daly
is absolutely right. Budget time is a
good time to do it. We had discussions
on and off over the year with regard to how to clean this up on both sides from
an administerial perspective. Say we
come up with a flat fee arrangement for CSID to provide utility billing and
customer service for NSID. Here is how
much we are going to charge you per account.
We are going to bill you on a monthly basis. All of the employees are CSID employees and
will remain CSID employees. You are just
charging a neighboring district through an interlocal agreement for the
services you provide. The same thing
with SWCD and their human resources services.
We have management of PTWCD. We
provide supervision of their field operations.
We need these multiple interlocal agreements to be able to capture the
fact we are helping these districts out.
Mr.
Fennell stated I see Mr. Daly and Mr. Cassel’s objective is to make sure our
facilities and personnel are fully utilized.
I know it may cause some issues sometimes, but I really see our Director
of Operations doing this; selling our services to other groups. There are certain scales which work for us
and others which do not. Obviously,
accounting services and billing services we have capabilities going beyond
general local districts and we can be selling those. This is an issue from a legal standpoint that
if you have some thoughts on it, it will be nice to know.
Mr.
Daly stated I have been informed by the Riverwood CDD at
Mr.
Goscicki asked when did they say that?
Mr.
Daly responded they told me about two weeks ago.
Mr.
Goscicki stated they have not told us.
They told us the opposite two days ago so I am not sure of what they are
doing.
Mr.
Fennell stated the issue here as far as the chain of command goes, I want the
Director of Operations to go out and sell our services.
Mr.
Hanks stated all of these positions are really defined. The only thing I do not have a good handle on
as far as the scope of services is Mr. McKune.
Ms.
Zich stated I do not understand either.
Do we have a contract with you?
Mr.
Goscicki responded no we do not. Mr.
McKune and I met up on this issue this morning.
I asked Mr. McKune to come back to me with some of the areas where he
sees himself providing continuing services.
In the last year a big part of Mr. McKune’s efforts have been involved
with the pre-design aspects of the major capital improvement program. We are at the point where we are wrapping up
the pre-design. Mr. McKune, Mr. Cassel
and I met this morning on this. We asked
Mr. McKune to come back with a suggested scope.
This is one of the clean up things we need to do.
Mr.
Fennell stated our own engineer reports in through operations and into the
District manager. Just like he needs to
resell his services to the Board, you need to resell your services.
Mr.
Hanks stated I am trying to define where we are going. We see your role as being for this year, next
year and the foreseeable future. With
regards to how we are going to be proceeding, one thing we have to consider in
house is if we approach you as becoming an employee of the District. We want to find out what the scope is and
what you anticipate in terms of projects coming down. We pretty much know what we have going on for
the next three, four, five years in terms of plant operations and
construction.
Mr.
Fennell stated it is up to management to figure out what they need to do their
job correctly.
SIXTH
ORDER OF BUSINESS Summary
of South Florida Water Management District Grant and Alternative Water Supply
Meeting
Mr.
Goscicki stated you were well represented.
We had your engineers. Mr. Hanks
was there along with Mr. Cassel and me.
Mr. Skehan, do you want to give an overview of the meeting?
Mr.
Skehan responded sure. The purpose of
the meeting was to get better details from SFWMD. It was to better understand where they are
going, what they are looking at and what the opportunities are for possible
alternative water resource funding. In
regards to your situation here at the water plant and associated projects to
that, a Florida Aquifer Well may be a potential candidate for funding; not 100%
or 50%, but some “seed money” as they describe it. In the past, CSID has not been active in
looking for funding opportunities for the District. There are some opportunities for some “seed
money” for some of the current projects.
What I have seen in some of the other projects in the past is $250,000
or $200,000. It varies depending on the
size of the project. We talked about the
water use permitting, what the status of it is and how it ties into what will
be taking place as far as looking for some alternative funding.
Mr.
Goscicki stated SFWMD presented their formula; if you build a 3 MGD reuse
facility, here is the maximum amount of grant money available. They are very anxious. The people we met with were the alternate
water supply grant people. They have
their pot of money and they are more than happy to spend their money. Their task is to spend this money on
alternative water supplies. That is the
key issue. One of the messages we left
them with is that we appreciate the grant program. We are not ready to commit right now to an
alternative supply program. Our real
goal is that we do not want their money.
We want our full consumptive use permit to stay in the Biscayne Aquifer
so we do not need to go to an alternative water supply.
Mr.
Hanks stated if I may, I will put in a couple of key points. The timeline for this year’s grant money is
such that we do not have any projects we feel need to be processed and put into
this.
Mr.
Skehan stated at this point there are possibly some portions of the membrane
plant, which can be inserted into this pending the decisions SFWMD makes related
to the water use permit. If we want to
be proactive, we can have a grant application in for the Florida Aquifer Well
also.
Mr.
Hanks stated one of the key components is it has to be fully funded by the
Board irrespective of the grant money from SFWMD. We will be going forward with the project
regardless of whether we get any money from them.
Mr.
Skehan stated
Mr.
Fennell stated it sounds good. This
sounds like it is a first step. What is
needed here, the county was the last one to actually try to do something along
these lines four or five years ago, is a unified approach to understand what
our water needs are and have a unified voice.
We can form a common group and come up with a common program to go after
this so we adequately present the arguments for water uses in our area. We have not done this. We have mostly tried to maintain our water
district and do a nice job for our local area.
Obviously there are bigger issues starting to affect us and we need to
formulate policies which do well for us and
Mr.
Hanks asked are you saying to educate the consumers as to the real cost
associated with going to the Floridian Aquifer, which the policy makers are
directing us to go to?
Mr.
Fennell responded I think so. I think we
need to sit back and decide what we really want, what our goals are with regards
to water and what we think is the best policy.
I do not think we should run out and grab on to somebody’s grant money
for some other idea. I am not sure it is
what we need. I have my own ideas about
this, but I think we need to look at it from a rational standpoint. I know this is a highly charged political
item, but in the end we have to supply the adequate water needs for our area at
the lowest possible cost without impacting environmental issues. I am not sure those are all being done with current
policies.
We actually do a lot now which we do not get
credit for; for instance recharging the aquifer by having the canal systems
around us. We actually keep an extra
foot or two of water as opposed to areas which do not have these canals. I cannot calculate how many billions of
gallons we have, which our canals help hold within our area. This has to be helping the aquifer. I think this is an issue and I do not think
it is adequately understood. I suspect
the amount of water we actually use for sewers and drinking water is less of an
immediate issue over the entire area we have.
We are probably maintaining at least 24 to 36 inches of water. I think we more than adequately refill the
aquifer than what we use as far as drinking water. I do not think proper proportions of what we
are looking for our problem are there.
Secondly,
I think we can do better as far as managing the water flow when we need
it. We can have water transferred from
one area to another. I do not think we
are doing a good job of reflowing water back into nature, the
Mr.
Hanks asked what can you do with $2.5 Million to cut down on the surface side
of the water consumption? If we are
stuck with a 7.15 MGD withdrawal allocation, where are we going to get our
biggest bang for the buck for $2.5 Million?
Looking at the water billed versus water used or water treated, we have
been told all along we have 4% line loss, 5% line loss. You go to this month’s charts there are
several months in there where it looks like 20% of our water is not billed for. Let us focus in on some other areas. We can conserve how much water we put out
there. This also saves us on how much
water comes back and how much we have to treat.
Mr.
Fennell stated I applaud this first meeting.
I am looking for a strong effort in this. We need to unify not only us, but others as
well. I think we need to take a lead in
this. The county tried to take a lead
before, but could not actually do it because it did not have a dog in the
fight. They really do not have any
responsibility for water, but we do. We
have it in two different places; making sure it does not flood our property and
making sure we have enough. We should be
the ones doing this. We have to devote
our effort to it. It is the right thing
to do.
Mr.
Hanks stated we will need help from local lawmakers too.
Mr.
Fennell stated we will.
Mr.
Hanks stated not just the representatives, but also the county
commissioners. They have a big say in
their policy, which affects how they are dealing with stormwater treatments in
other districts.
Mr.
Fennell stated first off, let us define what the problem is and let us have
some rational engineering approaches to how we will solve this problem. I do not see those out on the table yet. I see extremist political viewpoints for
environmentalist requirements and others pulling for their own water. I actually do not see a rational
approach.
Mr.
Hanks stated there are approaches we need to bring into the mix and we need to
bring in our legal counsel. We need to
find out what it is under Florida Statute we are required to do. One thing the statute says is you have to
pull it from the economically best quality water. Where does this come into play with us having
to drill down extra feet at additional costs and pull out poorer quality water? What happens if we do not comply?
Mr.
Goscicki responded we have reached the point where, in my personal opinion, we
have transitioned out of sound logical scientific based decision making by
SFWMD and DEP on water management issues.
You are getting into regulation by pheon rather than by sound scientific
analysis. You will see it in the issue
on ocean outfall that is ongoing right now.
We are saying we do not feel good about this anymore and we could use
change. Meanwhile, there were
environmental impact studies done and there is no model on the Biscayne Aquifer
right now. We are in a situation where
we can model locally and if we can show we are not having a local problem
outside of our boundaries, we are in a good situation. It is a challenge we are faced with where the
science is not there right now and we are into decision making, which is being
done by policy formulation and not by science.
Mr.
Fennell stated obviously we have to do something about this. The surprising thing for me is I did not
realize how little science has actually gone into the new computer models
available to us. I saw what we did with
our own canal system. I realize what can
be done. We can model this and it is not
being done. It is important we push this
forward. Maybe we will end up being the
leaders in this. Certainly with the
model we did, we have done something most other areas have not done. We have a good viewpoint. There are still a few holes I am after to
fix. What bothered me was when we could
not predict the height of the C-14 canal during a hurricane. The fact we cannot do this and the fact SFWMD
cannot do this tells me there are some real issues. We need a formalized group going forward to
resolve the issues of how these studies should go.
Mr.
Hanks stated there should be an allocation for fiscal year 2009.
Mr.
Fennell stated we need it for going to the committee meetings and for more
rational approaches. I am not out to
spend $10 Million for this. We already
have a pretty good program we can build on.
First off, there should be a series of meetings we should call from an
engineering standpoint. What are the
problems, what are the possible solutions and let us go study them. Let us come back and look at the real
alternatives. I think we have to do
this. I also think we have to get
stronger in aiding SFWMD; even though they have an $800 Million budget. Never the less, the people who sit on the
board are all appointees and do not always have our viewpoint at heart. We need to find out who people are, but first
we have to start off with a rational approach.
What is it we think is the problem for SFWMD for our area and what we
think the solutions are? Then we have to
decide on the solutions and put them forward.
Mr.
Cassel stated we had a meeting with the engineers and the City of
Mr.
Fennell stated I think as part of our budget we can sponsor a development. We can call it a working group. You can get together with NSID, the city and
others. I have seen this kind of organization
before such as in
Mr.
Hanks stated there are few bodies which have all three uses or all three
charges, water, sewer and drainage, under one roof. The City of
Mr.
Fennell stated continue this. We would
like to see a budget item for the coming year for some kind of working group
committee.
SEVENTH ORDER OF BUSINESS Staff Reports