MINUTES OF MEETING
COMMUNITY IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT
The regular meeting of the Board of
Supervisors of the Port of the Islands Community Improvement District was held
on
Present and constituting a quorum
were:
Richard Gatti Chairman
Dale Lambert Vice Chairman
Ted Bissell Assistant Secretary
Norine
Dillon Assistant
Secretary
Richard Ziko Assistant Secretary
Also present were:
Edward Goscicki Manager
Dan Cox Attorney
Bob Dick
Tom Mack Staff
Dennis McKay
FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS Roll Call
Mr. Gatti called the meeting to
order and Mr. Goscicki called the roll.
SECOND
ORDER OF BUSINESS Approval
of the Minutes of the
Mr. Gatti stated each Board member
received a copy of the minutes of the
Mr. Ziko stated on
page 30 in the first paragraph it states “the permit for disposal of effluent
to the wetlands” anchors should be acres and it also in the next sentence.
Mr. Lambert stated on
page 34 the second statement by Mr. Benson we were talking about connecting two
lakes and not two lights.
Ms. Dillon stated on
pages 26 to 31 should be Mr. Gassaway and not Mr. Holchek.
On MOTION by Mr. Lambert seconded by Mr.
Ziko with all in favor the minutes of the
Mr. Gatti stated to go a little out
of order Mr. Mack is there anything you want to report on the fire station.
Mr. Mack responded no, I will have
more information after the meeting.
Mr. Gatti stated I passed out an
agreement between the county and the CID you might want to explain.
Mr. Dennis McKay stated the county is
asking for a Landscape Maintenance Agreement signed by the CID. The $300,000 grant was approved for the
landscaping in the medians out front by the bridge and now they are to the
point where they want a permit and want to get things rolling but they need the
Landscape Maintenance Agreement signed by the CID. It does not mean we are going to construct it
means we are going to maintain it.
Mr. Gatti stated I faxed the
agreement to Mr. Cox asking him to look at it because there was wording in
there which bothered me. It said the CID
was going to pay for it and maintain it in its entirety and I am not so sure we
can say that.
Ms. Dillon asked who decides what
they put in there?
Mr. McKay responded there has been a
landscape plan totally made up; you can go to county to see it.
Mr. Gatti stated we have a copy at
the water treatment plan I happened to see; I do not know if it is
available.
Ms. Dillon stated I know when we
talked to Ms. Patricia McKay about it the idea was to put in very low maintenance
plantings water wise, mowing and so forth.
I have never seen anything telling us what they are going to put in.
Mr. McKay stated it is basically
some irrigation and there are some specifications about brick pavers and all
sorts of things we are not using. It is
just mowing the grass, mulching and irrigation.
Mr. Lambert asked are they
installing the irrigation part of it?
Mr. McKay responded I do not believe
so. I cannot honestly tell you but I am
trying to find out. Everything which is
going to be planted is something that does not need a lot of water. I have pictures of all the different types of
plants they use.
Mr. Gatti asked Mr. Cox did you have
any comments on the agreement?
Mr. Cox responded I think you have
hit on both of them but there is a third.
My understanding was all of this landscaping was going to be installed
and the CID was going to be responsible for maintaining it. It does say you will construct and maintain
the improvements, which is one thing to be clarified. We also need to make sure the irrigation is
addressed and the last thing by way of explanation is what we are doing
here. The agreement itself is one I
developed for the county; I had a client who was the first to go in and ask to
do these extensive landscaping in county right-of-ways so I am familiar with
it. It is one the county took some
pretty hard stands on and I know they are not going to move on the issue I am
bringing out, which is the indemnification.
As you know the county and the District both have sovereign immunity and
there are some case law which seems to indicate if you give indemnifications
like this it is a potential waiver of the sovereign immunity; there is some
language I have developed in other situations I feel comfortable. I want to talk to the county attorney to see
if I can get it incorporated into this.
Ms. Lubitsch did return my call the other day and is emailing it back to
me, I have not seen it yet and we will work the language into it and have the
county’s attorney review it. I am sure
they will be comfortable with it because it is language I want to put which
will protect the county as well the District on the potential waiver of
immunity.
Mr. Gatti stated to give Mr. McKay
some idea of where he is going with this and the Board understands you are
communicating with the county attorney to bring this to some sort of form we
can actually accept.
Mr. Cox stated what I would suggest
is the basic concept of you are agreeing to maintain the infrastructure is
going to stay intact and if you go ahead and approve the agreement subject to
the changes I need to make with the county attorney.
Mr. Gatti asked was she giving you
some sort of deadline?
Mr. McKay responded it is has
changed now. We have to get it permitted
through the FDOT and they have their agreements and approvals to be
signed. I believe their next meeting is
July 23. They were talking about
starting in August.
Mr. Lambert stated we do not know if
it is our task or theirs to install irrigation.
Has anybody seen the drawings?
Mr. McKay stated he is bringing the
drawings over I will have them shortly.
Mr. Ziko asked do we access to water
there or are we going to have to go under 41?
Mr. Cox responded it is part of what
they will be addressing with the agreement with FDOT.
Mr. Gatti stated I am sure they are
not going to do part of it and ask us to do part of it; it will be a complete
package. The water is on each side of
41.
Mr. Benson stated I am not 100% sure,
where we are talking about. I apologize
for getting here late.
Mr. Gatti stated at the hotel.
Mr. Benson stated there are
waterlines there.
Ms. Dillon asked in the median?
Mr. Benson responded the hotel has
irrigation lines. In the median no, it
is on this side of the road. We cross
the roads somewhere because we have the irrigation pump station on the other
side of the road and we serve both sides of the road.
Mr. Ziko asked can we cross at the
bridge?
Mr. Benson responded somewhere we
cross. I do not have the drawings in
front of me.
Mr. Gatti stated we are not going to
engineer it now.
You will get the agreement
together. We will need to know that they
are going to do the whole thing and is what we will be looking for and then we
will sign off on the maintenance of it.
Mr. Ziko asked is that the essence
of what we have agreed to?
Mr. Benson responded yes.
Mr. Gatti stated we will have to
incorporate it into our landscaping agreement with whoever we have.
We appreciate you following up on
this and we all feel the same way that this is a very worthy thing.
Mr. Mack stated the land Mr. Holchek
is offering is 1 ½ acres for the fire station, no charge. The 1-½ acres next to it he is offering at
market price. We were thinking of using
the other 1-½ acres for finishing the water plant. We know we cannot use it for a community
center because it is going to be zoned environmental. I need to know if we need any of the land for
expansion of the water plant because they told me have someone who is
interested in that piece of property.
Are we going to need it or any of it down the line?
Ms. Dillon asked are we talking
about the piece of property between the fire station and our existing water
plant?
Mr. Mack responded exactly.
Mr. Benson stated when we first
started talking about this with the previous owner of the property at that time
the way I recall my discussion here was that at some point in time we were
going to need to upgrade our water plant.
We are not 100% in the future would we need a potential site for some wells
if we were to use a different water source.
It was my recommendation that it would not hurt to have a larger piece
of property immediately adjacent to your utilities. For instance one of the things we talked
about was at the time you build a new water plant at some point in the future
it may be easier to build the plant on the new site and not have to disrupt the
existing plant operations. It was just a
looking for forward into the future it would be good to have a little more
land; you have the minimum right now.
There were not any concrete plans as to what would go there but there
were some various things that potentially could. I recall also, there was some discussion at
Board meeting about the District potentially needing a maintenance building for
storing equipment and supplies. We now
have a lean-to building that was never built with permits it was just
built. If we ever wanted to put in a building,
we would have to have the proper site with setbacks and things. It was not a concrete plan it was a it would
be nice to have and this is the location because it is adjacent to your
utilities property.
Mr. Ziko asked do we have an
appraisal?
Mr. Cox responded yes.
Mr. Gatti stated the first question
is should we consider purchasing it. What
is the Board’s sense of it? My opinion
as a starting point is in terms of the CID we have almost grown into a
community, a little city onto itself, and somewhere along the line, we are
going to need a whole bunch of other things that we have not seen already. To have some additional land to be able to
use we can never go wrong on. We will
have the land, this is our first opportunity to get it, and on the other hand,
if it gets away from us it is gone. The
other thing is if we do not need it in the future and we want to sell it the
value is not going to go down, it does not hurt for us to have the land if we
have the resources to purchase it. To
have the land in our hip pocket is a smart thing as far as I am concerned but
do we have the resources to buy it?
Mr. Lambert stated the other thing
is what the price is.
Mr. Bissell stated we need to know
will we use it.
Mr. Ziko asked what is the appraised
price on it?
Mr. Cox responded $150,000.
Mr. Bissell asked how many ERC’s are
allotted to the piece?
Mr. Cox responded this was assuming
none.
Mr. Gatti stated I think it is a
no-brainer. We would be crazy not to if
we can get it for the appraised price.
Ms. Dillon stated it is zoned RT
now.
Mr. Benson stated we can rezone.
Mr. Cox asked zone it anything? Why not have it be public facilities?
Mr. Mack responded the part they are
going to exchange with is all zoned conservation.
Mr. Gatti asked what is your
concern?
Mr. Mack responded my concern is the
land will be zoned conservation only. We
can put a fire station on conservation but we cannot put a community
center.
Mr. Gatti stated let us establish if
we want to pursue the purchase.
Mr. Cox stated if we can have it
designated public facilities and it does not have any residential density
associated with it.
Mr. Gassaway stated what we are
looking to do is take the 2.9 acres, part goes to the fire station, and if you choose,
we want to change our division line on the whole parcel from conservation to
RT12 to go that much farther to the north.
We do not want to lose the RT12 zoning.
Mr. Cox stated he is working with
you on your site plan.
Mr. Gassaway stated the whole reason
this thing started was they wanted (
).
Mr. Cox stated what you want to do
when you go in for your site plan is your whole zoning designation you will not
be RT and conservation anymore you will be a planned unit development;
designate that pocket of it as public facilities and then where your wetland
delineations falls would become your preserve areas and your areas are open to
development.
Mr. Gassaway asked what if we decide
to separate the parcel from the conservation land?
Mr. Cox responded I would suggest
you do it as a planned unit development because it would be more efficient
overall for the use of the land. Your
open spaces and all of that kind of stuff would be related to the entire
parcel. If you split it up into two
parcels each is going to have to be developed under the constraints of the land
development code for open spaces and conservation areas.
Mr. Gassaway asked the conservation
would be considered part of the green space?
Mr. Cox responded there is a guy at
Hole Montes, Mr. Bob Duwane, there is one at RWA, Mr.
Bob Mulhere, and you need to get one of those two
guys involved. They are very familiar
with the projects down here.
Mr. Gassaway stated he spoke to him.
Mr. Cox stated I think it would be
better for the District if it was designated as public facilities which does
not have any of the density designation go with it there would be zero density
on it. All of the densities associated
with the property would stay on it.
Mr. Gatti stated let us get back on
track. Mr. Mack your concern is whether
we want to pursue the additional piece.
What is the Board’s feeling? Again,
my opinion is it is a no-brainer; we should pursue the piece of property. Given answering all of the questions and I
appreciate the zoning, price and all of that but in terms of our general sense
of it is we would like to pursue the property.
Mr. Ziko asked if we do pursue it as
a CID we should be able to get it zoned to what we need for if we need it for
the plant expansion shouldn’t we?
Mr. Cox responded I think the county
would look favorably on us because we are doing stuff they county would have to
do otherwise.
Ms. Dillon stated it would not
impact what we want to do in terms of swapping the property.
Mr. Lambert stated we do not want to
swap the property, they do.
Mr. Cox stated they would have to do
a rezoning with the county. We cannot
contractually agree we are going to be one type of zoning and they are going to
shift the RT zoning somewhere else.
Ms. Dillon stated that was the
criteria under which he donated the land to us.
Mr. Benson stated it is not the way
the county zoning process works.
Mr. Cox stated I think we have a
misunderstanding of how it gets accomplished.
It still has to be rezoned and ultimately the most efficient and best
way to do it would be to zone the whole parcel as a planned unit development
and have the different types of development tracts bubbled into where you want
to do the public facilities, where you want to have the conservation set aside
and where you want to have the gun club.
It is the way that property in all of the years that I have been here
the way I have said the property should be developed. The way the line for the conservation and the
RT are drawn on there is completely arbitrary.
You have uplands designated as conservation and you have wetlands
designated residential/tourist. You
could keep the established density to the property. You have X number of RT acres times the
number of units. Your overall planned
unit development does not exceed the density but you have shifted it into the
appropriate areas on the property for the development to occur.
Mr. Gatti stated if I have the sense
of the Board, we would like to pursue having the additional property. Now things have to fall into place for that
to happen we understand. In terms of
your direction, pursue the piece of property.
Mr. Lambert stated I sense they are
not ready to do that.
Mr. Gatti stated true, but if we say
no we are absolutely not interested that is one direction but if we say we are
interested it is another and what we are telling them is yes we are
interested.
Mr. Bissell stated I would like to
pursue the fire station parcel first keeping in mind we are interested in the
second piece. Would it be a problem?
Mr. Cox responded it is not a
problem it is just reaching an understanding of how we are going to implement
it.
THIRD
ORDER OF BUSINESS Manager’s
Report – Continuation of Discussion of the Proposed Fiscal Year 2007 Budget
Mr. Goscicki
stated each of you have an updated proposed budget for fiscal year 2007. If you recall at the last meeting the Board
reviewed the preliminary budget, approved it and established a public hearing
date for August.
At
the meeting the Board made certain modifications, which we have incorporated
into the budget. They were relatively
minor in nature but at the time the most significant item the Board recognized
was the budget as preliminarily developed and approved showed we had a
significant shortfall in water and wastewater and a significant surplus in the
general fund. Some of it is administrial but for the purpose of really tracking cost
the Board recognized we should do something.
As general fund you can always use general fund money; it is the parent
fund. You can use general fund money to
support water and wastewater, you cannot use water and wastewater fund to
support the general fund. Water and
wastewater needs to be a true cost but you can always as the general fund you
can borrow money from the general fund, you can donate money from the general
fund to cover water and sewer. The Board
told us to go back and look at going forward and reworking the assessment
levels between the two to keep the total assessment the same so there would no
increased assessments to the property owners but let us get the assessments to
now reflect the reality today and the reality going forward. We took the first shot at it. The other work we have done over the last
week and half is go through and try to do a better estimate of total projected
cost through the balance of the year, particularly with what we saw as the
final fund balance forward on each of the funds. As mentioned to the Board last meeting we
spent last meeting really looking at the expense side and just took a quick
look at the revenue side for the last two weeks we really honed in on the
revenue side to make sure we had a good understanding of what these revenues
looked like, what our expenses our expenses for the rest of the year would look
like to know what our fund balance forward would look like. What I would like to call the Board’s
attention to, you can certainly go over the details of this between now and the
next meeting to look at the details again in terms of the expenses. We did some clean up in it also so you will
see some changes in current expenses from the last number where we have cleaned
up a few things coded incorrectly to get them straightened out. What I really want the Board to focus in on
for today’s meeting is several sheets back the capital plan cash flow projects;
they are the ones with the blue bars on them.
You will recall from last meeting we have two sheets. One for cash flow for the general fund and
the second one being the cash flow for the water and wastewater fund. On the first line you can see the
assessments; the approved assessments for 2006 were $711,000 and we propose
going into 2007 to drop the assessment $310,000. It is a new assessment going forward from
2007 would drop to $401,000 or there about.
We have correspondedly taken the $310,000 and
if you flip the page we have added it to the water and wastewater enterprise
fund assessments, which has gone from $718,000 to over $1 million. We have kept the total the same. The line item as it appears on tax bill to
the residents will not change because they do not see two line items they see
one line item assessment and they total they see will stay the same.
Bringing
you back to the general fund, I would like to show what the impact of doing
this is. If you look at the bottom line
of the page you will see in 2006 we are projecting at the end of this year you
are going to have a fund balance forward of $1.3 million, you have a chunk of
change sitting in the general fund as a result of settlements and increases in
assessments the Board has done has generated a significant surplus in revenue
which is available for you to go and buy these pieces of property for fire
stations, future water treatment plants, and to fund your capital improvement
program.
What
you see happens though as we change this assessment in 2007 from $700,000 to
$400,000 you see the red in the middle of the chart where what happens in the
first year, 2007, you will be under funding the general fund by $400,000
because of the capital program. You have
a significant CIP carryover in 2007 of $495,000 we are projecting in the
general fund yet. You are actually going
to draw down the reserves, you are going to balance your budget by using your
reserve fund which is again perfectly appropriate it particularly in this case
with the size of the reserve fund you have.
You draw it down in the first year $400,000 and then in 2008 you are
again tapping into reserve funds by $100,000, again by $100,000 in 2009 but by
2010 you are essentially at a break-even point.
Your revenue is equal to your expenditures and if you look at the bottom
line in 2010 you have a projected reserve fund of $680,000. Your general fund is very sound right now and
dropping the assessments in the general fund from $700,000 to $400,000 will
allow you to comfortably start drawing down on the general fund to meet your
current obligations and by 2010 you are in a balanced situation where you have
met most of your projected capital, you are still maintaining a significant
capital reserve to meet other unanticipated needs but your revenue is equaling
your expenditures on a day to day basis and you are no longer drawing down from
reserves.
Mr.
Bissell stated we have a five-year project and this is bringing it out beyond
the five years.
Mr.
Goscicki stated this reflects the five-year capital improvement program.
Mr.
Bissell stated this goes through 2010.
Mr.
Goscicki stated you are now in 2006 and we are going into 2007 so we are
projecting out to 2010.
Mr.
Bissell stated we are going into our third year and we have two more years to
go.
Mr.
Goscicki stated the engineer is updating the CIP every year so every year you
should be looking at five years. We
always want to be looking five years out.
What you see is in the CIP in the fifth year you are down to $7,000; you
have met most of your capital requirements in these first few years; the
engineer has not gone in and done a longer term forecast yet. There was a column that said here are some
things we think we might do in 2010 and beyond and we tried to capture those in
2010.
Mr.
Bissell stated two years ago we told the people we were going to raise our
assessments for five years. Going on
this it is beyond the five years.
Mr.
Goscicki stated I am pointing out to the Board here is your current expenses,
here is the current projects we have identified in the capital plan and here is
the impact to your financials. Again,
you are looking in 2010 at having a significant surplus yet so the Board could
take some actions. We need to look at
the water and wastewater fund and talk about the impacts there before you talk
about when you might be able to start reducing assessments.
Mr.
Lambert asked does this take into consideration expenditures to repave the
road?
Mr.
Benson responded as we talked about two weeks ago we have updated all of the
cost to current prices except the roads and it is very volatile. I have the prices as of this morning. Those are a year ago numbers for the roads
and you might as well double it because that is the current prices. Prices on roads as I said two weeks ago
changes almost every week.
Mr.
Lambert stated I understand that but what I am saying is the document we are
looking at takes into consideration repaving the roads based on the price we
knew.
Mr.
Goscicki stated attached to this also is the capital improvement program. There are two versions, the one attached to
it the formatting was not so good so we got the formatting cleaned up and gave
you a separate attachment. On road
resurfacing you have $140,000 for 2007 and another $80,000 in 2007 and that is
what is in the road program right now.
Mr.
Benson stated that is the prices when we finished the design. We have we went back in the last few days to
get current bid prices on projects similar to this and the unit prices have
doubled in the last year. It may be
another 10% by next week or it may go down 5%.
Mr.
Lambert stated knowing that on this document the reserve will be decreased by
whatever the price went up.
Mr.
Goscicki stated right now you have $220,000 budgeted for next fiscal year for
road improvements. If it goes to $400,000,
it means your reserve at the end of the year instead of being $900,000 will be
$700,000.
Mr.
Ziko stated at the last meeting I-3 on the CIP for fiscal year 2006/2007 that
$250,000 was supposed to be taken out of there.
This is another ¼ of million-dollar error.
Mr.
Benson stated that was a different project.
Mr.
Goscicki stated I have taken the project off the list.
Mr.
Benson stated this is a project we have designed and is on the shelf we have to
do.
Mr.
Ziko asked why is it $250,000 in 2006 and $250,000 in 2007?
Mr.
Goscicki responded it is the cost estimate.
The first two columns are the estimates and if you look at 2006 actual
there is nothing in the column.
Mr.
Benson stated it just shows when we estimated in 2005 it was $200,000 and in
2006 it went up $50,000.
Mr.
Goscicki stated the first two columns are cost estimates and the columns after
that are the actual projected expenditures.
Ms.
Dillon asked have you changed the prices on everything except the pavement?
Mr.
Benson responded correct. I was
confident of the water and sewer projects because some of those are required by
DEP but on the road resurfacing I wanted to find out how much of it you were
going to do this year before I update the estimate. You gave me direction two weeks ago to put
out for bid the first project. We have
prepared the documents for bidding the same way we originally had which was to
do the inspection of the road on Newport Cay and have an alternate price to do
the other project that is designed to see what the bid prices are. If the prices are good, you can choose to do
it now or postpone it. We will get there
bids where you can choose.
Ms.
Dillon stated also the $90,000 in here to pave
Mr.
Benson stated as the road paving jobs go into the future unfortunately it is
very volatile based on petroleum products and demand. I would rather update them when we get close
to a project.
Ms.
Dillon stated when we originally put in the additional assessments we told the
people in the community we have a five year plan and we were planning to stick
to a five year assessment increase. This
proposes to continue it, does it not?
Mr.
Goscicki asked when did the assessment start, 2005?
Mr.
Cox stated if you go back and listen to those tapes I am sure your manager,
lawyer and your engineer all told you not to promise a definite period of time
for the assessment and while we were looking at a five year period it had to be
flexible it may go a couple of years beyond that and maybe a little
shorter. Do not feel like you have
obligated yourself to end these.
Ms.
Dillon stated I do not I just want to be able to tell the community that in all
likelihood the assessment is not going to go away for awhile.
Mr.
Goscicki stated I think you can tell them comfortably you will use all of the
five years but as you get into 2009, the numbers get much better. You are carrying surpluses; your revenues are
equaling your expenses in the general fund you are not drawing down. We get into the water and wastewater fund to
show what it looks like next. I think it
is good news on the general fund certainly even with the reshuffling of
assessments by 2010, which is your sixth year, I think the ability is there if
the Board wanted to do something on the assessments they might be able to do it
but when we talk about the water and wastewater fund the water plant there is
the big kicker of one that might happen and we will talk about it next.
Mr.
Cox stated my understanding of these numbers is you are including that item
which you will probably have to debt finance.
Where the CIP assessments will probably plunge after that you are
probably going to pick up an additional financing instrument that you are going
to have to pay. The good news is it is
the year the bonds are paid off so the people who are having bond debt payments
still those will go away when the new debt comes in and it is going to be
significantly less.
Mr.
Bissell asked did you say there is going to be a carryover at the end of this
year?
Mr.
Goscicki responded yes, if you look at the bottom line of the ending fund
balance that money is available and carries over each year.
Mr.
Bissell asked why not do these projects before the price escalates again?
Mr.
Gatti responded because every time we suggest doing a project we say let’s wait
maybe the price will go down. Let’s make
a decision on some of these things, do exactly what you just said, and go ahead
with some of these projects.
Mr.
Goscicki stated you are taking on a lot in 2007.
Mr.
Benson stated we have a lot of things. I
think in the water and wastewater we are spending over $1 million this
year.
Mr.
Goscicki stated in 2007 you will be spending close to $1.5 million.
Mr.
Bissell stated we are taking in another $1 million next year.
Mr.
Goscicki stated in 2007 you will be drawing down $400,000 from the $1.3 million
we are projecting. You will be spending
$400,000 out of the general fund. If you
look two lines up in the red this is what you are pulling out of your reserves each
fiscal year. At the end of the column is
the projected for what we think you will have at the end of this fiscal year,
$1.3 million and as you go into 2007, it is down to $900,000. You are reducing the monies you have
available because you are pulling money from reserves to meet the capital
plan.
Mr.
Cox stated you will have to loan some of that money to the wastewater treatment
plant because you are going to have an ending fund balance that is
negative.
Mr.
Goscicki stated as you turn the page you will see you have another $100,000
plus you will pull from there also.
Turn
to the water and wastewater fund, the second page of the cash flow
analysis. There again the first column
is the adopted budget for 2006, the second column is projected 2006, and then
proposed 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 budgets.
On the revenue side, we significantly bumped up the revenue in 2007
reflecting the change of moving assessments from the general fund to the water
and wastewater. Because of the CIP we
have undertaken this year we spent a lot more in CIP than was originally
projected due to some increase in cost.
It significantly reduced the retained earnings going forward from what
was originally budgeted. We thought we
would have $500,000 we will end the year with only about $124,000 as funds to
carryover. Next year we are looking at
$1 million in capital improvement. You
can see to balance the budget we have to draw $250,000 out of reserves; we do
not have so we wind up in a negative position at the bottom line for the water
and wastewater fund and are short $135,000.
The money will come out of the general fund to further draw it
down. I did not add the additional
complication in and show it balancing but that is what will happen. The good news is with the increase on the
water and wastewater fund as you get into 2008 your water and wastewater CIP
has this big bubble with the wastewater treatment plant improvements in 2007
then drops off significantly and kind of tapers off for the next two years. You can see in 2008 you have no red numbers
and you are actually putting money back into reserves and in 2008 you are fully
funding and in 2009 also. 2010 did not
show this CIP of $2.4 million on the engineer’s CIP. It was shown as a future 2011 plus. I put it in here just to show the Board from
the cash flow analysis what you are looking at because I look to this and said
you are generating $400,000 in surplus in 2008 it is up to $700,000 in
2009. He people that $2 million in CIP
out of there have over $1 million in cash and sitting in the bank in 2010. Like you were getting really flush is cash
again but I wanted to bring to the Boards attention you have a $2 million plus
water treatment plant there that you are building some reserves to. Again, this is a five-year flow projection
you are not approving or adopting a five-year budget you are adopting this year
a one-year budget. This is for your
planning perspective intellect to know where you stand financially. It is encouraging after going through these
numbers painstakingly last two weeks can really to make sure we knew we were
talking about capital program fund balance forward, where the money is, and
what we can do. I am very comfortable to
report to you now you are in a good financial position. I think the reallocation of assessments from
general fund to water and wastewater is something that will stay at that kind
of proportion, you may drop the water and wastewater, but I think the general
fund moving down to that level is probably appropriate. I think the 50/50 split was probably based on
not having done a five-year projection.
Looking at long-term now I think we have much better numbers to be able
to show us really what we are looking at as to what kind of expenditures we
have. I think we are in good stead we
have sufficient funds to be able to move forward with the program. Reallocating those assessments is something
we will work on and have done for the final budget. The only guidance I asked from the Board
right is as you can see in 2007 you will be still even with the change in
assessments from general fund to water and wastewater it still has you
borrowing $134,000. I recommend leaving
it there; I could balance it out and make it zero in just jury rig the
assessments a little bit more. To I think
the number is good that when you look at the general fund I do not think
reducing the general fund any further is appropriate because again in the water
and wastewater in out years you begin covering it quickly. Make it a one-year borrowing from the general
fund, close it out and then you are on a good stable path after that.
Mr.
Lambert stated some time in 2007 the Board is going to have to say we are going
to borrow $130,000 from the general fund for the water and sewer.
Mr.
Goscicki stated you can borrow it from the general fund or you can just have
the general fund give the money to the enterprise fund.
Mr.
Lambert stated will have to be some formal action.
Mr.
Goscicki stated we will have to do a budget amendment at some point to balance
it out and make it happen.
Mr.
Cox stated it may come as late as when you get your audit for next fiscal
year. You can do reconciliation with the
resolution fixing the discrepancy. One
point Mr. Goscicki he is making is he is bringing in $2 million potable water
treatment plant that we may not have too fund as early as 2010. It is possible that in two to three years you
may be able to look at the level of your assessments and rolling them back some
with the idea that when you do decide to do the project you are going to
completely debt finance it.
Mr.
Lambert stated at least this way it does not get off the horizon on us.
Mr.
Goscicki stated this was the only reason for moving it up to keep it on the
planning horizon recognizing it may be done in later years in which case I
think when we get into the 2008 budget we can seriously start talking about the
assessments and any possible downward adjustment would be part of not next
year's budget in 2008 because at that point we will have completed the construction
of the wastewater plant, some of the other major capital, other general fund
road resurfacing programs, and irrigation programs will have been completed and
we will know exactly what they cost, what we spent, did the numbers match the
plan and can start projecting it. You
are in the planning horizon, you promised the community 2009 you think you
might be able to reduce the assessments or 2010, that timeframe. That is what the numbers are show and in that
timeframe you might be able to bring back the assessments. I think we are in good stead here with the
community and again with the year of increased construction costs the community
is seeing. We can tell you every district,
every place in the state and every government are going through this. You are lucky to get bids on construction now
it is that tight of a market. We are
doing well despite huge increases in construction cost.
Mr.
Lambert stated on this sheet regarding your operating revenues for water and
sewer we have nothing budgeted for the year 2007 for meter fees but when I go
to the other sheet it shows $6,000 budgeted for 2007.
Mr.
Goscicki responded we are not perfect yet.
We originally developed these two separate worksheets, we have now
combined them as one model, and we are still making all the linkages work.
Mr.
Lambert asked are we billing when we hook meters up? We do not seem to be generating any actual
revenue. It appears to me we should have
a few at least. I know there has
probably not been many new ones installed.
For every meter we see installed we should see $200 of revenue and any
irrigation meter would be treated the same as potable water.
Mr.
Goscicki responded I believe so.
Mr.
Lambert stated at single-family home with more than likely have a $400 meter fee
for both potable water and irrigation.
It appears we are not accounting for the funds correctly or were not
getting the bill.
Mr.
Gatti stated lets have Mr. Goscicki look into it.
Mr.
Goscicki stated Mr. Dick has been working with Mr. Daly over on the utility
billing side trying to match up what we have a on the billing register with
what Mr. Stephens thinks has been set as meters. You are right we are not showing a lot of
activity on the billing side.
Mr.
Gatti stated look into it.
Mr.
Goscicki stated I do not need any action from the Board with regard to the
budget at this meeting it is just giving you an update as to where we are. At our August meeting is when you begin
taking formal action on the approved budget.
If the Board certainly has any comments we are here to take any comments
but what I would ask is that you spend between now and our July meeting
reviewing what is in front of you and if you have any questions we continually
go through and refine these numbers until we adopt the budget in August.
Mr.
Lambert asked will the July meeting to similar today if we have an item you
discussed it?
Mr.
Goscicki responded we can discuss it.
August will be the public hearing, opened to the Board and we will put
on a full presentation to and run the numbers to show community.
Mr.
Ziko asked as the evaluation of metered customers been done?
Mr.
Dick responded it has been done. We had
meter readers from the
Mr.
Ziko stated we still have the water loss.
Mr.
Dick stated we are eliminating possibilities as we go and it is looking more
and more like underground leaks. We had
the pumpage report, the 24-hour report showing there is pumpage going on at
night,
Mr.
Bissell asked have you checked any more meters?
Mr.
Dick responded part of that was to see if we have very accurate physical reads
from every meter every really did not find what we would call dead meters. That one may have been an anomaly, I had a
zero consumption report printed from the billing office as well as these folks
doing the inspections and we really do not find any dead meters.
Mr.
Ziko stated you were going to get us a report on the bond status of individual
lots three months ago. Is there any
chance we can get that?
Mr.
Goscicki responded we are updating that now is part of the assessment roll and unfortunately,
for me I gave the person in charge of that last week off. The assessment roll that we keep for you is
that detailed it breaks down by individual properties, shows who has a debt,
who has water and sewer, who has general fund assessment. It is a detailed spreadsheet; it is a working
tool that we are going to make a copy of.
It is not designed for presentation but I think it is clear enough in
terms of folio number and property name for the Board members if they are
interested to walk through and identify individual lot issues. We will get that to you I promise.
Mr.
Ziko stated once again in the water and sewer funds we have a discrepancy in
the top line for March and April the maintenance fees are not added in. We show $70,000 maintenance fees going and
our total revenues are only $3,000.
There is obviously a mistake there somewhere.
Mr.
Lambert stated we had the same problem last year and if I recall correctly it
started in the same place. My guess is
they just copied the spreadsheet.
Mr.
Goscicki stated we thought we corrected it in January where we had that problem
we corrected in February and I would hope the cell had been corrected all the
way across. It is an error in the cell;
it is not picking up the row is just picking up a couple of the line items. I will bring it back, we put a new accountant
on this District, Ms. Helena Randel, she is one of our more senior accountants,
and I have been very pleased with the work she has been doing over the last
month that she has been involved in helping to clean this up. This is one of the more complex Districts in
terms of having a debt service fund, enterprise fund and a field operation with
utility side. I think you will see an
improvement with her on board.
Mr.
Ziko stated we should have that corrected by the next meeting.
Mr.
Goscicki stated yes.
Mr.
Lambert asked can we ask there be a sanity check put on this document? The balance sheet where the column was not
widened to accept the number is a quick catch if there is any kind of look-see.
Mr. Goscicki responded yes. You are right there is no excuse for this
kind of thing it is just a production error.
When our accountants review them all online they are checking the
numbers electronically and recording is supposed to be checking the printed
version before it goes out.
Mr.
Ziko stated on the previous month we had a sheet in there that said account
balance detail and it is not in this month.
Is there any reason why we cannot get it every month?
Mr.
Goscicki responded again this is a special report which is done for this
District along with the one before it and is one of the reasons why it does not
always fall in.
Mr.
Ziko state I would like to see it included, there is a lot of information on
that page. I also have it highlighted we
did not get an annual interest rate on over $2 million and I would like to see
it appear. The check register items
description is incomplete; some of them have item description, some of them
have nothing and under description we get an account number. It would be a little bit better if we had
something other than an account number for the description of what we are
paying. At the last meeting, I brought
up a question on check number 50990 for workers compensation premiums, a
workers compensation audit, and another workers compensation premium on
5099. It totaled $8,700. If you look in here under the water and sewer
funds and under the general fund we only have $2,400 in each which is $4,800
and we have a discrepancy here of $8,700 to $4,800; it is a $4,000 discrepancy in
this sheet.
Mr.
Goscicki responded I will look. The
summary sheet by month is pulling from the financials.
Mr.
Ziko stated it should not be coming out of the check register.
Mr.
Goscicki stated the check register feeds the financials and the financial feed
the summary report. The time periods
between the check registers in the financials are not always the same as what
you are seeing here. You are seeing the
most up-to-date check register.
Mr.
Ziko stated this check was written March 15.
In March you show $2,400 going to each one of the funds but the checks
that were written one was for $7,691 and the other was written for $1021. We have a discrepancy of $4000 in what we are
paying workers compensation.
Mr.
Goscicki stated I will look into that.
Some of these things depending on what the cost item is we generally do
cash accountability where it is a modified accrual accounting.
Mr.
Ziko stated we only budgeted $6,000. We
budgeted $6,000 we paid out $8,700 and we have no idea where the money went to
because it is in the check register and you do not show it in the accounting
here.
Mr.
Goscicki stated I will go back to the financing. I do not look at that report because it is an
add-on report. I look at the
financials.
Mr.
Ziko asked what is an add-on report?
Mr.
Goscicki responded it is not part of the basic financial reports we do for any
of our Districts it is a report we created for this Board. It should show up in the financial reports in
front of that and if it is not reconciling I will go back and have accounting
resolve it.
Mr.
Ziko stated it shows up as actual $2,420 in both funds. The other one is to Sterling Testing. Last month we asked them to clarify it; we
have a $250 annual fee and then we had a $145 fee for the testing of one person
which amounted to $400 for one drug test.
This month we got another $230 fee and another $35 fee for one
more. For two drug test we spent $660 is
anybody checking these billings from
Mr.
Goscicki responded yes.
Mr.
Ziko asked is it reasonable to have $660 for two drug test?
Mr.
Goscicki responded I do not know what those cost are.
Ms.
Dillon stated this one report, which shows the tax collections, the date
received column is error logged. The
date shows 2009 and 2010.
Mr.
Goscicki stated we will get the correct year on it.
FOURTH
ORDER OF BUSINESS Attorney’s
Report
Mr. Cox stated I do not have anything for
you specifically but I believe there are some questions.
Mr. Ziko stated I have
one on the never-ending entrance signs.
Did we wind up with the easement for those?
Mr. Cox responded I
have not been able to follow up on it.
Mr. Ziko asked did we
follow up on the easement for the pumping station? As we said before we should spend the money
and get these things done but if we do not have the easement we cannot do it
and the $80,000 bill is escalating.
Mr. Benson responded
we are also waiting for the DEP permit.
We should be getting everything accomplished its same time the attorney
does.
Mr. Cox asked is this
the one you sent the diagram to me?
Mr. Benson responded
yes.
Mr. Ziko stated we do
not have the DEP permit for Parkson either then.
Mr. Benson's stated
all of the reuse and wastewater plant is under one permit with DEP. They have told us they have accepted
everything and are writing the document, we have just not received it from them
yet.
Mr. Ziko asked the
easement?
Mr. Benson responded
we are working on the easement separately because the easement relates to tease
South Florida Water Management District.
We have to have it resolved before we can actually construct the project
which we cannot construct until we get the permit. We have been working on the two issues that
same time...
Mr. Ziko asked you we
have any guesstimates when we are going to get these?
Mr. Benson responded I
would like to be able to give you an estimate on DEP for the permit but I will
tell you that there is a permit for the city of Naples treatment plant were
everything they needed was received over a year ago, they said they were
writing the permit and they still have not received it. They told us they were writing the permit,
all of the issues are resolved. Unfortunately,
we do not have any control over a state agency to make them hurry up.
Mr. Cox stated their
staffing level right now is way down. I
know an area in north
Mr. McKay asked with
the signage up front how long is it going to go on?
Mr. Gatti responded
that is the wrong question.
Mr. McKay David I have
lived here for eight years now and you do not even know where you are when you
get here especially at night.
Mr. Cox stated they
actually told us we never had a permit.
Mr. McKay asked what
is the problem?
Mr. Cox responded it
has been a never-ending fiasco and we are trying to get it resolved.
Ms. Dillon stated I
want to talk about Orchid Cove.
Mr. Cox asked what do
want to talk about?