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HomeMy WebLinkAboutFinance 08-09-02 ST. CROIX COUNTY NOTICE OF COMMITTEE MEETING TO: Chairman Buck Malick St. Croix County Board FROM: Tom O'Connell COMMITTEE TITLE: Finance DATE: Friday, August 9, 2002 8:30 A.M. LOCATION: Room 1281, Government Center, Hudson CALL TO ORDER ROLL CALL ADOPTION OF AGENDA DATE OF NEXT MEETING: September 10, 2002 8:30 A.M. ACTION ON PREVIOUS MINUTES UNFINISHED BUSINESS: NEW BUSINESS: 1. Review of Vouchers 2. 2003 Budget Review a. Personnel Positions Discussion 3. Building Maintenance Report 4. Information Services Report 5. Finance Report a. 2001 Audit Report - Tracey & Thole - 9:15 a.m. i. Future GASB 34 Requirements b. Review of Financial Reports c. Review of PTO Accounting 6. Hudson Joint Library Proposal Presentation- 10:00 a.m. 7. Corporation Counsel Report 8. Clerk's Report a. Request to Exceed Lodging Rate for WCA Conference 9. W-2 Report - John Borup 10. Risk Manager's Report 11. Administrative Coordinator's Report a. 2003 Budget Proposal b. Review of County Investment Policies c. Request to Exceed Lodging Rate for WCA Conference CORRESPONDENCE: ADJOURNMENT (Agenda not necessarily presented in this order) Date: July 30, 2002 COPIES TO: County Board Office News Media/Notice Board County Clerk County Board County Departments * *ADDITIONS/CHANGE S/CORRECTIONS 5f FinanceMinutes August 9, 2002 MINUTES of the ST. CROIX COUNTY FINANCE COMMITTEE Meeting of August 9, 2002 The meeting was called to order by Tom O'Connell, Chair, at 8:30 AM. Roll call was taken with O'Connell, Ralph Swenson, Stan Krueger, Clarence Malick and Esther Wentz in attendance. Also in attendance for all or part of the meeting were Administrative Coordinator Chuck Whiting, Corporation Counsel Greg Timmerman, Judy Wiff, media, and Finance Director Rich Loney with Loney serving as the recording secretary. Tom O'Connell left the meeting at 10:30 AM. A motion was made by Wentz, seconded by Krueger, to adopt the agenda. Motion carried. It was noted that the next meeting is scheduled for 8:30 AM on Tuesday, September 10, 2002. A motion was made by Malick, seconded by Wentz, to approve the minutes of the previous meeting. Motion carried. Wentz had met with Loney prior to the meeting to review the bills. A motion was made by Wentz, seconded by Swenson, to approve the vouchers for payment. Motion carried. Budgets for 2002 and 2003 were discussed. Malick said he was trying to be conservative with authorizing Board members attendance at meetings, conferences, etc. Whiting said that departments are working on their 2003 requests and that he has not been hearing of any issues that have arisen which have not been previously discussed. Malick questioned the rate allowed for personal use of employee's vehicles, currently at $365 per mile, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) allowed rate. This was discussed with points raised about the IRS rate vs. the state rate, etc. A motion was made by Malick to budget for 2003 at $38 per mile with actual reimbursement to be at the IRS rate. The motion failed for lack of a second. The Committee discussed new position requests. Whiting said that, according to the budget timetable for 2003, this is the meeting where Finance should have its review. The Personnel Committee has scheduled their review for Wednesday, August 14th, and Whiting asked if Finance wanted a special meeting between August 14th and the County Board meeting on the 20th to review. He said the amount of the requests is currently at approximately $744,000. O'Connell said he felt consideration should be given to holding a special meeting for this purpose. Swenson said he was reluctant to approve any new positions without seeing the budget in total, thereby having an opportunity to look at trade-offs in case not all requests fit within the overall budget framework. He does not want to look at pieces of the budget isolated from other pieces. Krueger said he agreed with the approach of looking at the total budget picture. This was discussed with Malick saying he would ask the Personnel Committee to request that parent committees prioritize these positions in their budget requests. Timmerman suggested that this could coincide with the initial looks at the budgets. Approval at this step would then carry to step #2. The consensus was to wait and have those positions approved by the Personnel Committee included in initial budget submittals. Malick said he would expect a Personnel Committee review of the position requests based on organizational charts, position descriptions, etc., not dollars. The full position review process was discussed. Swenson expressed his opinion that, if Personnel denies a position request, Finance should not be viewed as an initial point of relief. Timmerman said our organizational structure does not allow the Finance Committee to override denial by another committee (in this case, the Personnel Committee). Wentz said she would like to know what positions are being requested by other committees. Krueger said he felt we should have more information on these requests. 1 Finance Minutes August 9, 2002 Dawn Budrow gave the risk management report. The Worker's Compensation report she had prepared was reviewed with it noted that there have been 68 claims to date in 2002. The Committee was interested in comparing the number of claims to date to total number of personnel covered. Proposed informational budgets for Worker's Comp. and Property & Liability were reviewed and discussed. These would be budgets meant to track various items of expenses for 2003 outside of the normal budget process. Various points relating to this were discussed. Budrow said she plans to look into the possibility of looking at various levels of deductible for building insurance if allowed by our carrier, the Local Government Property Insurance Fund. A motion was made by Malick, seconded by Wentz, to approve the informational budgets as presented, including the wage and fringe benefit allocation. Motion carried. At 9:30 AM the Committee met with Steve Tracey and Steve Scheidler, auditors, representing Tracey and Thole to review the recently completed general county audit for 2001. Tracey gave a general overview of the work performed. He noted that the financial position of the General Fund is good, with an undesignated, unreserved fund balance of approximately 27% of General Fund expenditures. A discussion followed on Fund carry forward items, or areas of the operation whose balances do not close to the General Fund balance at year-end and these items were noted in the audit report. Various major items of General Fund activity were discussed as were Highway Department operations, Worker's Compensation, Health Insurance and Property & Liability Insurance Funds. Regarding comments made in the Management Letter, segregation of duties was discussed at length. Swenson suggested the possibility of moving to a central point for the collection of all funds. Tracey said he had not seen this in other counties, although the possibility of looking at some sort of internal reporting of this was noted. Regarding the question of what is considered a "material" item, Tracey said a rule of thumb would be something involving 5% of a fund's operation. The policy on depositing collected funds will be discussed at the next meeting. Regarding the issue of cash reconciliation, Tracey said that, from a segregation of duties perspective, this function could reside in either the Treasurer's office or Finance. Loney noted that the 2002 cash reconciliation along with the outstanding check list have basically been completed through June. The Management Letter noted the disparity between budgeted and actual revenue for the past three years. Jail inmate and bond trust accounts were discussed with Tracey noting that the bond issue noted last year has been corrected. The inmates trust account remains a project in process. Jail Capt. Karen Humphrey noted that Board of Prisoner revenue for 2002 was budgeted at $980,455 and that, with $366,245 received through July, the estimate for the year is $766,000. She was encouraged to develop a most probable approach for the 2003 budget. Tracey commented on the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) Statement #34 that will take effect in 2003. This involves a change in audit reporting as well as the full depreciation of fixed assets. In response to a question from Swenson, Tracey said that the County is in no way "pushing the envelope" as far as accounting issues are concerned. Krueger questioned the level of outstanding fees in the Court system, an issue the audit does not report on. Malick noted that, with the imminent change in County Treasurer, training issues should not be overlooked. Also, this may be an appropriate time to look at any redefinition of duties in that area. Peer review discussed with Tracey saying that his firm is subject to this and have gone through it with an unqualified opinion given. The Committee took a break until 11:15 AM. Jail Capt. Karen Humphrey reviewed their medical line item for 2002, feeling they may be over in the range of $10,000 - $20,000, although she cautioned that this could be more as it is very difficult to predict. She also distributed their current jail census. The Committee also reviewed a memo from Mary Martell that projected Sheriff's Department overtime to be over budget at year-end by $65,000, but wages to be under budget by $100,000 due to vacant position and Worker's Comp. reimbursement situations. 2 Finance Minutes August 9, 2002 At 11:20 AM, Jim O'Connor met with the Committee to discuss creation of a joint library with the City of Hudson, Village of North Hudson and Town of Hudson. Also sitting in for this discussion were Kathy Setter from the Deer Park Library, Norma Scott from Somerset, Nancy Miller from River Falls and Kay Walsh from the Somerset Library Board. The Towns of St. Joseph and Troy have also been included in discussion of this but, at this time, are not being considered for inclusion with Troy having tabled the issue because they could not find an approved way to divide the Town for library purposes and St. Joseph having had concerns and took no action on the request. However, Mr. O'Connor said they are planning to present a new proposal to St. Joseph in September. Both the Village of North Hudson and Town of Hudson were unanimous in their endorsement of this concept and it is necessary for the County Board to act on the request of a township to exempt itself from the library levy. Malick said he had received an advance copy of the proposal from Joe Feidt and had sent a copy to John Mortensen. Wentz questioned the impact of this to other libraries. O'Connor said it is not the intention of the Joint Library to harm any other libraries, that they want as much support as possible. He also stated that they would very much like to see the County continue the practice of funding libraries at the higher of the amount they received the previous year or 70% of the cost of their rural circulation as required by Act 150. Three possible scenarios for funding were reviewed. Wentz commented that, from the joint library proposal, it appears as though funding from the City of Hudson will remain at its current level but that funding from North Hudson and the Town of Hudson will rise. O'Connor said the proposal is to increase these rates until they are at the mill rate the City is currently at. He noted that they City currently funds approximately $212,000 out of the total $371,000 budget for the Hudson Library with City circulation being about 38% of the total for this library. The City feels they are contributing more than their fair share with the $212,000 amounting to a mill rate of approximately $30 per $1,000 of valuation. The joint library proposal does contain language that the city continue its funding at the current level until a uniform tax rate of approximately $.21 per $1,000 is achieved. O'Connor said he felt that, at current rates of growth, this would take about four years. Wentz said she feels the City should fund any expansion planned, and that this not be placed on the backs of township residents. O'Connor noted that some funding shifts might result from formation of the joint library. The current County library funding was reviewed and it was noted that new equalized valuation figures to be used for apportionment of the 2003 budget would be out next week. The Committee discussed how library money is currently levied and distributed. Wentz said she would like more time to review the proposal to determine the actual impact for all libraries and municipalities. Timmerman said the law does allow the County Board to prevent towns from forming joint libraries, but that it cannot prevent villages from doing so. O'Connor said current plans are to establish the joint library effective January 1, 2003 and that they would like its structure in place for budget discussions. Swenson said he would favor waiting for new valuation amounts to be known to see the exact impact on all municipalities. O'Connor said that waiting until September 10th would also allow time to determine whether or not St. Joseph has agreed to the revised proposal. Timmerman said this should be dealt with then at the September County Board meeting. It was also suggested that local officials, county librarians and representatives of IFLS (Indianhead Federated Library System) weigh in on this issue. Kathy Setter said the librarians are very concerned with continued funding levels for all libraries and the long-term impact of this. The definition of rural circulation from libraries was explained. Norma Scott discussed the Somerset Library and the growth they see in circulation to residents of the Town of St. Joseph. Nancy Miller reviewed these and similar issues from the perspective of the River Falls Library. A motion was made by Malick, seconded by Wentz, to table discussion of this issue. Wentz said she would like to see what the support levels for the Hudson library from the City of Hudson have been for the last five years. Motion carried. Malick expressed his feeling that this should be revenue neutral over the long haul for all local libraries. There was no report from Building Maintenance. 3 Finance Minutes August 9, 2002 Whiting said that the Information Services Committee has been discussing e-mail for Board supervisors and that a demonstration of this will be held at the August County Board meeting. Timmerman reported on the potential local impact of two recent Supreme Court cases. The first relates to a maintenance issue at the Highway Department. In the past, if a county had discretion on an issue, it was immune from liability. The issue before the Court related to a branch that hung over the face of a road sign and was not removed. The Court viewed this as a public nuisance and, as such, something that must be corrected. The second case was a Dunn County appeals case where the Court ruled that cost cannot be the sole consideration when determining the most appropriate treatment for a Human Services case. The Committee decided to defer the W-2 presentation. Plans are to have the Highway Department 2003 budget review as part of the next regularly scheduled meeting on September 10th. Nursing Home operations are running within budget for 2002. The Committee briefly discussed the Personal Time Off (PTO) plan St. Croix County has in place. Krueger said he would like to see an evaluation of the various provisions of the plan. Whiting reviewed the proposed Administrative Coordinator's budget for 2003. He noted that, as was discussed earlier in the meeting, Budrow's wages and associated fringe benefits have been moved to the Worker's Comp. and Property & Liability Insurance funds where her time is spent. A motion was made by Malick, seconded by Wentz, to forward the budget to the formal review process. Membership in the International City Managers Association was discussed with Whiting saying he retains his membership and pays the dues himself. Swenson said he felt the budget should include funds for more staff development opportunities. The motion failed on a tie 2-2 vote. Regarding county investment policies, Whiting and Loney suggested consideration of movement in other directions such as using certificates of deposit, current County depository investment divisions, money management firms, etc. It was decided to look further at this later in the fall, perhaps at the November meeting. After brief discussion, a motion was made by Malick, seconded by Krueger, to approve using the going rate for lodging at the Wisconsin Counties Association (WCA) conference in Milwaukee. Motion carried. After some budget discussion, Malick and Wentz both suggested moving slowly into consideration of a procurement management position, perhaps after 2003 budgets are complete in the November to January time frame. The consensus was that we should move slowly with this concept. Regarding the next agenda, it was decided to place the issue of the joint library on at 11:00 AM. Swenson also requested discussion of handling of the farm account. Malick noted the deadline for applying to WCA for board of directors positions is August 30th The meeting adjourned at 1:30 PM. Stan Krueger Secretary 4