MINUTES
OF MEETING
CORAL
SPRINGS
IMPROVEMENT
DISTRICT
The regular meeting of the
Board of Supervisors of the Coral Springs Improvement District was held on
Present and constituting a quorum
were:
Bob Fennell President
William J. Eissler Vice
President
Glen Hanks Secretary
Also present were:
Dennis Lyles Attorney
John McKune Engineer
Doug Hyche District
Staff
Jean Rugg
Janice Moen Larned
Cedo DaSilva Ch2M-Hill
Jane Early Ch2M-Hill
Mr.
Fennell called the meeting to order and Mr. Petty called the roll.
SECOND ORDER OF BUSINESS Organizational Matters
A.
Acceptance of
Resignation of Mr. Eissler
B.
Appointment of
Supervisor to Fill the Unexpired Term of Office (6/2007)
C.
Oath of Office of Newly
Appointed Supervisor
D.
Election of Officers
Mr. Fennell asked if anyone was
present who was interested in the position.
Not hearing any, this item was tabled until after staff reports.
THIRD ORDER OF BUSINESS Approval of the Minutes
of the May 15, 2006 Meeting
Mr. Fennell stated each Board member
received a copy of the
Mr. Hanks stated on the bottom of
page nine and top of page 10, I asked questions rather than made
statements. On the bottom of page 12,
the sentence “surveyors usually charge $12,000” should be deleted.
On MOTION by Mr. Eissler
seconded by Mr. Hanks with all in favor the minutes of the
FOURTH ORDER OF BUSINESS Hurricane Debris Removal and
Canal Bank Restoration Status
Mr. Petty stated our contractor
submitted his first invoice, which we paid and submitted to NRCS. We are hopeful to see the money in a short
period of time. We will then be able to
tell you what the rest of the fee return will be and the timeliness.
Mr. McKune
stated the work is almost complete. We
are in the process of some final walkthroughs.
NRCS sent a representative last week and they are pleased with the
job. The representative called his
supervisor in
Mr. Eissler
stated I agree.
Mr. Fennell stated it actually looks
better than before the hurricane.
Mr. McKune
stated they exceeded our expectations both with their speed and quality of
work.
Mr. Fennell asked were there any
comments from the city?
Mr. Petty responded none from our
government associates. We received
positive responses from the residents and relatively few from those who wanted
to get their irrigation system repaired.
Generally speaking, the response has been powerful and positive on the
cleanup efforts. We have not received
any accolades from the city for our sister districts.
Mr. Hanks asked have you spoken to
the new commission?
Mr. Fennell responded yes, after
they were elected as I was accepting the award for the waterway cleanup. It went fairly well. I feel we are in good shape. However, I have not heard any details about a
common tree definition. I guess we will
have to make our own definition.
Mr. Hanks stated I spoke with an
Arborist who is familiar with assessing the quality of trees. He had some projects in
Mr. Fennell asked how much will he
charge us?
Mr. Hanks responded he estimated an
hourly rate not to exceed $500.
Mr. Eissler
asked hourly or total?
Mr. Hanks responded total. I have a copy of his contract.
Mr. Eissler
asked did you receive a copy of the booklet from the City of
Mr. Hanks responded yes.
Mr. Fennell stated they are talking
about trees in front of the house.
Mr. Eissler
stated they are all good trees.
Mr. Fennell asked has he started
this work yet?
Mr. Hanks responded no.
Mr. Fennell asked do we need to do
anything if the contract is under $3,000?
Mr. Petty responded if it is under
$4,000 we can award based on the Board’s direction. Anything above $4,000, we should go out for
bids. If it is part of a consultant’s
contract, we will ask for it to be part of the engineer’s contract as a
subcontractor. We will also ask our
engineer to complete a study to see if this is something they can work with,
unless Mr. Lyles sees a problem.
Mr. Lyles stated no.
Mr. Petty stated for $500, we can do
this in-house with direction from the Board.
Mr. Hanks stated I did not feel
comfortable having him walk the canals and spend several hours of his
professional time without offering to reimburse him.
Mr. Fennell stated I do not have a
problem with this.
On MOTION by Mr. Fennell seconded by Mr. Eissler with all in favor the proposal with Sutton
Consulting Arborist, Inc. in the not to exceed amount of $500 was approved.
Mr. Hanks stated he is available for
the July meeting.
Mr. Petty stated we will make
arrangements with him to come before the Board and walk through our facilities.
Mr. Fennell asked did we pay the
Arbor Tree and Land bill?
Mr. Petty responded yes.
Mr. Fennell stated we do not have
$1,000,000 in our checking account.
Mr. Petty stated according to your
financial statements, you have $1,800,000 as of May 31st. This amount is now slightly higher. We are making payment to them out of our
general funds. The first bill from Arbor
Tree and Land was $1,000,000. We should
be receiving another bill for $800,000.
We feel there is enough cashflow to handle the
next payment. If we need additional
funds, we can go into the Water and Sewer account and do a transfer from this
fund to the General Fund in order to borrow the money. I will defer to Ms. Larned, if you have any
questions.
Mr. Fennell stated the bottom line
is we are spending $1,000,000 and will have to assess the residents.
Mr. Petty stated we are going to ask
you to assess the residents $800,000 to bring the account back to $1,000,000 so
we have the funds in case there is another storm.
Mr. Fennell stated I assume we are
going to be discussing the results of the hydraulic study of the systems.
Mr. McKune
stated we were going to discuss this item under item seven.
Mr. Fennell stated this ties into hurricane debris removal. We need to decide what to do next. We hardly received any rain but we had some
wind. We need to see what happens if we
receive 10 to 15 inches of rain after we remove all the trees.
Mr. Hanks stated if we had rain with
the storm, we would have had more trees come down due to the soil getting
saturated.
Mr. Petty stated as the water table
rises, the trees become unstable.
FIFTH ORDER OF
BUSINESS Distribution
of Proposed General Fund and Water and Sewer Fund Budgets for Fiscal Year 2007
and Consideration of Resolution 2006-2 Approving the Budget and Setting the
Public Hearing
Mr. Petty stated the Board did not
receive the Water and Sewer Fund Budget, only the General Fund Budget. Resolution 2006-2 by title is:
“A RESOLUTION APPROVING
THE DISTRICT’S PROPOSED GENERAL FUND BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2007 AND SETTING A
PUBLIC HEARING THEREON PURSUANT TO
The public hearing will be held on
Mr. Hanks asked when is the deadline
to have the assessments into the Property Appraiser?
Mr. Petty responded the first week
in August. You probably have two weeks
to play with.
Mr. Hanks asked when do we set the
actual rates?
Mr. Petty responded you will adopt
the budget first, which will set the rate we will input into the
resolution. You will then adopt the
resolution setting the assessment to be put on the roll.
Mr. Hanks asked if we are having the
public hearing on the General Fund Budget on August 27th, how will
we be able to approve the budget setting the assessment and submit to the
Property Appraiser on August 1st?
Mr. Petty responded we will provide
them a preliminary budget to get us through the TRIM process and finalize immediately
after our meeting.
Mr. Lyles stated we have additional
flexibility because we are not bound by the Chapter 190 budget processes. Therefore, we do not have the 60 day notice
period. We have to publish the notice of
the public hearing on final adoption of the budget once a week for two
consecutive weeks. The second instance
has to be at least seven days ahead of time.
We could schedule the public hearing for July under our Special Act
rather than waiting until August. Then
you have time to deal with the Property Appraiser and Tax Collector.
Mr. Hanks asked when do we need to
adopt the Water and Sewer Budget?
Mr. Petty responded before the end
of the fiscal year.
Mr. Hanks asked when is the end of
the fiscal year?
Ms. Larned responded on September 30th.
Mr. Fennell stated we should hold
the public hearing in July.
Mr. Hanks asked is staff prepared to
proceed?
Mr. Petty responded with counsel’s
permission, we would be glad to consider July, with a date of the Board’s
choosing. We will schedule the public
hearing for the next regularly scheduled meeting in July.
Mr. Hanks stated the second week of
advertising falls within a holiday.
Mr. Lyles stated it does not affect
it. However, I am available on July 24th
if the Board wishes to move the meeting.
On MOTION by Mr. Fennell seconded by Mr.
Hanks with all in favor moving the
Mr. Lyles stated at this time, the
Board needs to consider a resolution adopting the proposed budget and setting
the public hearing for
On MOTION by Mr. Fennell seconded by Mr. Hanks
with all in favor Resolution 2006-2 Approving the General
Fund Budget and Setting the Public Hearing for
Mr. Petty stated the budget you are
being presented with is the proposed budget.
It is called the Manager’s Budget because direction typically comes from
the accounting and manager’s office. The
philosophy comes from Ms. Larned as Treasury Director. We defer to her for long term policies.
Mr. Fennell stated we are going to
get our reserves back to $850,000. To do
so, we are going to have to increase assessments.
Mr. Petty stated from $91.38 to
$158.50.
Mr. Eissler
stated I thought the assessment was always in the $80 range.
Mr. Petty stated the year before it
was $82.04 and last year it increased to $91.38.
Mr. Fennell stated for the
catastrophe we just went through, this amount is accurate.
Mr. Eissler
stated the residents will not even notice.
Mr. Fennell stated we have a good
reason to increase the assessment.
Mr. Petty stated we have had
assessments in the thousands. The
Manager’s Budget proposes this as a one year issue. There are several projects before this
District. We think it is reasonable for
you to allocate such funds for such issues.
Mr. Hanks asked would we be looking
at some point in the future if there is an absence of cash for the assessment
to decrease?
Mr. Petty responded no. There is a predominance of contracts ahead of
you. You have the healthy tree removal
issue, which we expect to be around $1,000,000 plus; re-landscape this site to
buffer us at a cost of well over $1,000,000 and refurbish your reserve account
to get it back up to $1,000,000. We feel
this is the highest priority, which is why it is in this year’s budget. However, next year or the following year
under the hydraulic profiling, we expect to bring up other projects as
well. We do not see this assessment
going down in the foreseeable future, probably for the next five years for
sure. You may have other conditions
where you may consider financing to cover other projects you bring in as a
priority. Hurricane Wilma brought many
things to our attention.
Mr. Fennell stated at the next
meeting, I would like for you to provide us with a capital spending plan. We have a budget but it does not reflect what
we are going to do for capital spending.
Let’s talk about the plans you have, time frame, money and expenditures
for the next five years. We have been
doing this mostly for water and sewer.
We are not going to approve these projects, but have an understanding
going forward of what we think it is going to be. Obviously tree removal should be on the
list. Now the question is why we had the
trees there in the first place. Part of
the reason was because we were trying to create buffers. We will see what the hydraulic study brings
us. It may either say nothing or
indicate we have more issues than we intended.
Commensurate with the July meeting, we need to have a Capital
Improvement Budget. I am looking for a
Gant Chart, which is a simple line mechanics chart with a time frame.
Mr. Petty stated we can do one.
Mr. Fennell stated page three shows an
Adjusted Fund Balance of $1,400,000 but we actually have $1,800,000. Correct?
Mr. Petty responded as of May 31st.
Mr. Fennell stated we spent
$1,000,000 and we are now down to $800,000.
Mr. Petty stated you committed
$1,000,000.
Ms. Larned stated the bill has not
yet been presented.
Mr. Petty stated Mr. Fennell is
referring to the first draw on the contract.
Keep in mind, this is a working paper.
We are trying to project out for budget purposes what carry forward we
can use as a revenue source for your consideration in next year’s proposed
budget. In this calculation you are not
seeing $1,000,000. What you are seeing
is $300,000 less, which is our share after we get reimbursed by NRCS. This is a presentation of what we think is a
reliable expectation of the funds in the bank we can carry forward to use as
revenues to offset any projects we have in next year’s budget. Ms. Larned and I spent at least an hour and a
half going over the same item with the Accounting Department. It is subject to some interpretation. We feel this presents a fairly reliable
presentation to the Board for consideration.
Mr. Fennell stated I see a line item
for pump station replacement engines.
Mr. Petty stated we will be
discussing this item later in the meeting but I can tell you we are not
satisfied with our pump station situation.
We will ask the Board to authorize the engineer to do an evaluation. The reason why we are not happy is because
there was a contract a year and a half ago to re-do five pumps and motors at a
cost of $440,000. The money has been
held, although the contract was awarded because the contractor provided one
motor in the past year and a half. We
spoke with Mr. Lyles office about our
dissatisfaction. From our experience, it
is best to give the contract to the attorney and direct him to remit the letter
to the contractor stating we find them in default of the contract. In our opinion, the contract is not
responsive and we are asking the attorney for advice. Our engineer was not a party to the issue as
it was performed by on-site staff, mainly Mr. Roger Moore. I prefer to have CH2M-Hill involved since
they built the first units in
Mr. Fennell stated we replaced the
pumps four or five years ago. This
contract is for replacing the engines.
In fact we put an extra pump and engine into each one. Then we heard the motors were going bad and
we had to replace them.
Mr. Petty stated the motors were old
and getting to the point where the cost for repair and maintenance was getting
so high you wanted to consider replacing them.
A contract was awarded but the contractor has not been responsive after
a year and a half. One motor was
delivered but has not been installed. We
will have the engineers evaluate the current condition and maintainability of
the pumps. You may be able to save
$400,000 or continue the contract with a modified motor before the next year
and a half elapses. I would like the
Board to have the ability to say with confidence the pump station is 110% ready
for hurricane season. In case we keep
the contract, there is $452,045 set aside which is the contract amount. The reserve for the first quarter option is
standard operating procedure since all of our revenue comes from the Property
Appraiser. However, this money does not
start coming in until January.
Therefore, we have a Reserve Fund for the first three months. Available reserves to be
applied is $122,977.
Mr. Fennell asked what are available
reserves?
Mr. Petty responded these are
projected amounts off of the $1,400,000.
This is a cost from your reserves.
Ms. Larned stated it is what we
think was leftover from last year. We
have not completed the audit, even though we are working off of
$1,400,000. According to the financial
statements, it appears we are getting less revenues
than expenditures. The accountant is
estimating it out for the rest of the year.
If all goes well, this is the number we plug in to true-up at the end of
the year to close the books and have $250,000 leftover.
Mr. Fennell asked are we spending
this money this year?
Ms. Larned responded yes. It is tied into next year’s budget
planning. We bring this number forward
to be used during this current fiscal year.
Mr. Hanks stated this is hopefully a
low estimate of our carry forward.
Ms. Larned stated correct.
Mr. Petty stated $251,000 is a
revenue source in this year’s budget.
The number could change dramatically if we initiate programs before the
end of the year. We have time. The bottom line is you will have more
projects done this year and less carry forward for projects next year. The total should be the same. I would not carry forward the projects to
next year. We may be able to get to some
of these projects before the end of the fiscal year.
Mr. Hanks stated we have to be
careful with the cashflow. I would like to have more in reserves.
Mr. Fennell stated we had $1,400,000
as of last September. The report last
month indicated $1,800,000 in excess revenues.
Ms. Larned stated this amount is in
the monthly financial statement for the projected through
Mr. Fennell stated some of this is
committed money.
Ms. Larned stated correct.
Mr. Fennell stated even though we did
not terminate the contract, the $450,000 is part of the committed money.
Mr. Petty stated we currently stand
in a good financial state. We do not
expect to run into problems, even after paying all the monies due under this
current contract for cleanup.
Ms. Larned stated what you are
seeing are just the revenues and expenditures.
You do not see the activity for the reserves. You are basically asking what is going in and
out of your reserves. There is an extra
schedule in your budget for planning purposes to show what has been designated
for certain items.
Mr. Fennell stated the piece we are
missing is the cashflow sheet.
Mr. Petty stated the items on page
one as well as some other control and oversight functions will be brought to
you on October 1st on the transaction overlay. The transaction overlay gives us some protection
since we have a single accountant in case an accident, illness or move by the
employee occurs; the District is not affected.
This document gives you daily cashflow
reports. Whenever there is a posting, it
becomes available and internet based.
Mr. Fennell stated we have not
needed this up until now. However, we
need it now with the expenditures we have for capital expenses.
Mr. Eissler
stated I agree.
Mr. Hanks asked are the assessments
calculated on a per lot basis for the commercial properties?
Mr. Petty responded per unit, with
$11,000 units calculated. The commercial
properties are converted on a per acre basis.
Mr. Hanks asked what about the
assessment for
Mr. Petty responded it is on a per
unit type basis based on the call rates of single family. For purposes of figuring out what it is going
to cost for the number of units, we use 11,113 homes to show what the bill will
go up by. Some will pay less and others
will pay more.
Mr. Fennell asked will you have a cashflow sheet for us at the next meeting?
Mr. Petty responded no. This will be implemented on October 1st. At the end of the first month, you will have
some preliminary numbers. By the third
month of the new fiscal year you will have indications of your spending levels
and program efficiencies.
Mr. Fennell asked who is generating
this document?
Mr. Petty responded Severn Trent.
Mr. Fennell asked where will it be
paid from?
Mr. Petty responded in a line item,
we allocated $5,000 under the General Fund.
Ms. Larned stated the transaction
overlay is half way down through the expenditure listing for
administration. There is a check and
balance system to have a three way match between the Purchase Order, receipt of
the goods and the invoice. It is
internally controlled. When the field
location receives the goods, they will enter it onto the internet and submit to
the Accounting Department. The
information from the internet is posted to the General Ledger.
Mr. Fennell asked is our current
system capable of doing this?
Ms. Larned responded we have to do
some work on it. We will get to this
item later in the budget.
Mr. Petty stated generally speaking,
this is a double entry system, which does not have to be compatible with other
software. It can be independent. There are two checks. Let’s say for management purposes, I wrote a
Purchase Order for $25,000. The
accountant is not going to book it until the vendor sends an invoice and they
are satisfied with the contract conditions.
However, for purposes of planning and management, as soon as you get
approval to spend the money, you need to know the money is gone for your next
consideration of a project. This is cashflow management.
If you want to see what your cashflow is, you
look up the transaction overlay on the website to see what its condition
is. If you are trying to find out your
accounting status, you look on the financial monthly reports supplied with the
agendas. There are two different
systems, one for management purposes, which we refer to as the cashflow, which will be accomplished by the transaction
overlay and the other is the financial accounting, which satisfies the Auditor
General for the State of
Mr. Fennell asked what does the
electronic document system do?
Mr. Petty responded it scans all our
blueprint plans through a large format scanner, which is on-site and
functioning. It will be located in the
operations building. We will start
loading all our as-built drawings and have them on a server, which Mr. Daly will
maintain. The database is yours but Severn
Trent will supply the optical character recognition and large scale scanner.
Mr. Fennell asked what type of
machine?
Mr. Petty responded an AS400 or its
successor. Later in this budget, we are
going to ask you consider a successor.
Mr. Fennell asked why is our
computer time down to zero?
Mr. Petty responded because later on
we are going to talk to you about a successor to the AS400. We feel you should own it rather than
renting. The intent is to make you as
independent as possible. As a leader among
your sister districts, we feel this puts you in a better position to handle
your business.
Ms. Larned stated this is supported
by the internal audit report presented at the last meeting.
Mr. Fennell asked does this have to
do with the $50,000 spent for capital purchases?
Mr. Petty responded yes. We believe $50,000 is the General Fund’s fair
share of purchase of a new breed of AS400, which is eight times faster than the
existing machine. We are looking for at
least a terabyte of storage. It turns
out we can get approximately seven terabytes.
The reason why we are considering a fairly large one is because of the
blueprints and drawings.
Mr. Hanks asked is this system
compatible with what the city has for their information?
Mr. Petty responded it is
non-proprietary. The document management
system stores the documents in a number of different formats, the most standard
which is PDF. It should be standard with
99.9% of any program out there.
Mr. Hanks asked do we have documents
to scan?
Mr. Petty responded you have
warehouses all over the city full of documents to scan. Ms. Rugg has been a genius to be able to
retain the information about where these files are located. However, she has been running three different
document management systems and has come up with what we think is the best program
we can run on-site. You know it by the
name it was saved by but it uses artificial intelligence to find the document by
search criteria similar to Google.
Mr. Fennell asked will this also
apply to the Water and Sewer Fund?
Mr. Petty responded the transaction
overlay is done on a transaction estimate.
For some of these items, we try to do a 50/50 split between utility
billing and normal accounting functions.
The next item is under Field
Operations on page two. As discussed
during the audit, we thought it was in the District’s best interest for all
shared employees to be owned by CSID.
The slight increase in your General Fund is complete ownership of Mr.
Randy Frederick who has been handling your water management facilities for
almost 30 years, along with Mr. Nick Schooley, his
predecessor. Mr. Hyche
is now bound to CSID solely.
Mr. Fennell stated this is a good
thing.
Mr. Petty stated Net Pension Expense
increased because our labor costs increased with full allocation to CSID but
also because we are recommending the Florida State Pension Plan for our
employees. It is competitive with
everyone else out there since we are competing with a labor market dwindling
faster than I care to speak to at this meeting.
All our competitors offer this to their employees. We investigated it but the increase was not
dramatic at this time.
Mr. Fennell stated we revised our
pension plan five or six years ago.
Mr. Eissler
stated it is a big jump.
Mr. Petty stated Mr. Bill Joyce took
with him $90,000 when he retired. This
is what he has for his lifetime award. The money market issue has gone up and
down. My pension program was similar in fashion
and I lost capital for a couple of years.
You have people who put in a lifetime to this District. We are seeing quite a few of them cycling
through the system. They are leaving
with less than what you know they need. However,
to maintain a lifestyle here, they have to move.
Mr. Fennell asked is this like a
401K?
Mr. Petty responded it is a self
directed 401K.
Mr. Eissler
stated it is probably hard to get everyone to join.
Mr. Petty stated the young guys want
the cash because they are trying to pay for their lifestyle. We are going to increasingly be hit with this
as we are what is considered to be an upscale
community in
Mr. Eissler
stated I agree.
Ms. Larned stated part of what the
Florida State Program offers is a health subsidy, once they reach retirement
age. This is a very large attraction of
the program because in most cases this becomes your biggest expense. Consequently this is a subsidy program
underwritten by the state through the funding they achieved over the last few
years so it is fully vested and is a nice benefit for the employees.
Mr. Fennell stated I assume this
requires a vote of the Board.
Mr. Petty stated through the budget
process. When the application comes in
the first month we will ask you to approve it.
However, you can approve it through the budget process.
Mr. Eissler
stated to recruit, hire and maintain good employees you have to be
competitive.
Mr. Petty stated we do. Our pay is not bad. We like to think our quality of life is
exceptional and we are different. We let
someone work in any area that he/she can excel in and we have diversity. In some city programs you will work at the
same job from the day you walk in to the day you die. We have this to help us compete so our pay is
typically close but our benefit program is where we flounder. We lost personnel, mainly qualified operators
at the water and wastewater plant over the last year due to this issue. Once they get their licenses, they feel they can
do better on benefits with other companies.
Mr. Hanks asked do we pay to train them?
Mr. Petty responded yes, however this
is a minimal investment for us. We do
this hoping they stay. We cannot get
commitment for a year or two worth of service because the dollars are not
there.
Ms. Larned stated it is not just a
recruitment tool; it is also a retention tool.
Mr. Hanks stated good point. I am looking for a sheet with current
benefits.
Mr. Petty stated we have an example
we can bring to the next meeting. We
obtained information from the Florida State Pension on their current program.
Mr. Fennell asked is this a defined
benefit?
Ms. Larned responded it is a defined
contribution.
Mr. Petty stated it took us a long
time to admit openly this was considered civil service work. We had several lawsuits filed over our 25
plus years from the labor pool. We tried
to keep the mentality of business, not bureaucracy. We find most of the staff is willing to do
so. In a practical conversation, it is
getting difficult to motivate people when they say, “I do not mind treating
this as a business, giving it my full effort, giving 110%, coming in when the
storms hit and making sure everything functions, but I have to make at least as
much as the guy who is working at 70%”, which is the typical bureaucrat. We have people with motivation but we want to
be able to keep them here and hire their replacements when it is time for them
to go. We can certainly show this
example and bring it to the next meeting.
Mr. Hanks stated just because it is
in the budget does not mean we have to adopt or accept
it later.
Mr. Petty stated it is only for
consideration right now. As you are
owners of the personnel and will be paying the costs, you will be seeing the
revenue generated from your ability to take employees and work them in other
Districts. They will also be paying
their fair share.
Mr. Fennell asked why did health
insurance decrease?
Mr. Petty responded due to the age
of our personnel.
Mr. Eissler
asked because they are younger?
Mr. Petty responded yes. We are going through a cycle where the oldest
employee is Mr. George Guck. We used to
have four employees who were here 30 years and longer. Mr. Jan Zilmer keeps track of this
constantly.
Mr. Eissler
stated he is doing a good job.
Mr. Fennell stated workers
compensation insurance is increasing.
Another large increase was in Repairs and Maintenance.
Mr. Petty stated Field Operation
Services went to zero because you are getting this service with existing staff
and we see no reason to add to this line item.
This line item was for Mr. Moore or his assistant. As an ex-operator, I have operational
experience so there is no reason to hire anyone. We told you this time you will know exactly
what you received from Severn Trent and what we were going to do for you. For Repairs and Maintenance, some items were
incorrectly allocated to Capital Outlay, which should be under Repairs and
Maintenance. We removed some of Mr.
Moore’s items because we do not believe they made sense. There were some items with life spans of 75
years but we will not get 1.75% of their value today. We are bringing back the divers.
Culvert Inspection and Cleaning was
budgeted at $100,000, which is high. We
used to spend $35,000 a year, but when we went out for bids we obtained a bid
for $80,000. It turns out the issue is
OSHA started watching what these companies were doing and they now are required
to have three divers in the water.
Mr. Hanks stated Shenandoah had a
big problem this past year with some divers.
Is there a company who provides cameras?
Mr. Petty responded yes. We can use the cameras to find the silt, but
the divers are there to clean them.
Mr. Hanks asked do we own these
culverts or are they owned by
Mr. Petty responded they are owned
by us because we paid for them out of bond funds. We are not inspecting culverts installed by
other entities. This does not include
the cost of inspecting secondary culverts.
Mr. Hanks stated you have a
right-of-way for
Mr. Petty responded the
District. Typically we install
culverts. If the county expanded them
due to four lanes, they have to come to us before we allow it.
Mr. Hanks stated we have a license
from them for this right-of-way for our stormwater
crossing.
Mr. Petty stated we have a primary
license since we were there first.
Mr. Lyles stated those are right-of-way
and utility easements. We are the permittee by SFWMD.
It is our system.
Mr. Hanks asked has anyone checked
with
Mr. Petty responded yes. We are ahead of everyone else when it comes
to inspecting these pipes. Other
entities use our format. We are first
and foremost the best drainage entity in
Mr. Fennell asked are you proposing
we delete this item from the budget?
Mr. Petty responded we recommend you
set aside monies for budget purposes if we are doing culvert inspections and
cleanouts. This is a reasonable amount
of money to spend, with all the pipes we have.
We spoke to our engineers about this and they are recommending it as
well.
Mr. Fennell stated there is a line
item for roof replacement.
Mr. Petty responded you have seen
this roof item before but we have not done it yet.
Mr. Fennell asked did we approve it?
Mr. Petty responded yes.
Ms. Larned stated you have been
building up reserves. I started looking
at a number of these items in the budget and it did not make sense to me. You had Capital Outlay, Repairs and
Maintenance and a Reserve. We looked at
the useful life of some of these assets and asked ourselves whether it was an
annual expense that needed to be in the O&M portion of the reserves. When it becomes time to do the work, we will
have the funds. The reserves can be used
for hurricane expenditures or at the Board’s pleasure. We tried to clean up these items and simplify
it. We had lengthy discussions about it.
Mr. Petty stated Contingencies
increased based on what I feel is an accurate projection of 95% but this is
only a projection. As a conservative
Budget Manager we will ask you to hold 5% in Contingencies. We already discussed Reserves, which is the
next big number. We have time to work on
this budget and make changes and amendments as you see fit. We expect to distribute the Water and Sewer
Budget at the next meeting.
Mr. Fennell stated the difference is
in Budget Reserves.
Ms. Larned stated we deleted some
items. We put adequate funds into
Culvert Cleaning. There were other items
for $1,500 and $3,400, which we felt were small items and could come out of
Repairs and Maintenance.
Mr. Fennell stated this is an
operating budget; not a Capital Expense Budget.
Mr. Petty stated there is no debt at this time but there are capital expenses. We were able to handle this with our current budgeting program. We do not have to go outside for financing at this time. We do not see it unless the time frame for some of the five year capital program items we bring you in the next version gets accelerated. We think you have time to handle one priority per year, with the first one to bring back up the reserves. There is one exception, which is the healthy tree removal situation. As we know from Hurricane Wilma, there is a direct threat that trees within our right-of-way are a concern. Whether we do it this year or next year is up to the Board’s discretion. However, if we did this in an accelerated program, we would probably talk to the Bo