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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes_GGAF_02.19.2013 The General Government and Finance (GGAF) Advisory Subcommittee established by the Georgetown City Council met at 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, February 19, 2013, in the Friends of the Library Room, located at 402 West 8th Street, Georgetown, Texas. MINUTES The meeting was called to order at 2:05 p.m. These minutes were approved at the March 27, 2013 GGAF Meeting. 1. Review minutes from the January 9, 2013 GGAF meetings – Danella Elliott, Executive Assistant Steve Fought clarified statement for Bylaws recommendation: ”Steve Fought added that the number of members could be up to 7, and that if Council overrides this, it was the consensus of the group that Council members still need to dominate the vote.” Amended minutes unanimously approved. 2. Review and discussion of the results of the audit for Fiscal Year Ended, September 30, 2012 - Micki Rundell, Chief Financial Officer, Susan Morgan, CPA, Finance Director, Lisa Haines, Controller Susan Morgan introduced Lisa Haines, our new Controller and Jerry McMillon, with CliftonLarsenAllen, LLP, the City’s external auditor. The City’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) for the Fiscal Year Ended September 30, 2012 and related audit is substantially complete. Mr. McMillon discussed the audit process and noted that there were no adjustments and no issues. Below are the required communication under auditing standards (Audit Committee Report); • Status update and upcoming schedule related to the finalizing the current year audit; and • Overview of the audit results including results related to the Single Audit (federal awards) . He also commended Lisa, Susan and the entire staff for producing such a great document. The committee thanked Mr. McMillon for his report. 3. Recommendation on increasing the Electric Franchise Fee on Pedernales Electric Cooperative from 2% to 4.5% of gross annual revenues. Follow up to answer questions regarding PEG, Electric franchise, and Telcomm franchise fees stemming from the workshop held on November 27th, 2012 - Christopher Foster, Chief Financial/Utilities Analyst Members Present: Patty Eason, Danny Meigs, Steve Fought, Joe Pondrom, Jerry Hammerlun Members Absent: None Staff Present: Micki Rundell, Susan Morgan, Lisa Haines, Leticia Zavala, Chris Foster, Trina Bickford Council had several questions during the workshop held on November 27th, 2012 that needed further research to answer. Following Council direction, these findings were presented to the General Government and Finance Committee (GGAF). There is an estimated increase of $86,000 annually to the General Fund as a result of increasing the Franchise Fee rate on PEC from 2% to 4.5%. Chris Foster gave an update to November’s presentation, and answered questions. GGAF recommended to “have parody between existing customers in town, out of the spirit of fairness” and treat all out of town residents the same. They would also like to see the historic benefit. Unanimously approved. This will be a workshop item on February 26th. 4. Overview of the City’s current outstanding and proposed debt obligations - Micki Rundell, Chief Financial Officer In preparation for the annual bond issuance process, Micki gave an overview presentation which includes Revenue Bonds related to the City’s utilities, both self-supporting and taxable general debt obligations, the City’s current outstanding debt obligations, as well as, a preview of the upcoming bond issue that the Council will consider in April 2013. 5. Consideration and possible action to authorize Specialized Public Finance, Inc. (SPFI) to proceed with the preparation of the required bond offering documents for the upcoming April 2013 bond issues - Micki Rundell, Chief Financial Officer Micki explained that this action officially begins the April 2013 bond issuance process by authorizing the City’s financial advisor (SPFI) to begin work on the Official Statements needed for the bonds. This item does not authorize the bond issue or determine the final amount of total bonds issued. The 2012/13 Annual Budget included debt funding for certain capital improvements. TAX SUPPORTED BONDS: Estimated Tax Impact** General Obligation Bonds – 2011 Public Safety Authorization $0.010 10 Year Bonds Furniture & Equipment $1,000,000 25 Year Bonds Complete construction of the facility 3,500,000 General Obligation Bonds – 2008 Parks Bond Authorization $0.009 20 Year Bonds Various park improvements $5,000,000 SELF-SUPPORTING BONDS: Certificates of Obligation 20 Year Bonds Construction – Westside Service Center $4,000,000** plus issuance TOTAL PROPOSED BONDS $13,500,000 The “not to exceed amount” for the Certificates of Obligation will be included in the CO notice/action that will be presented to City Council on March 12. The total face value of the bond issue will increase to include issuance costs. Recommendation to authorize Specialized Public Finance, Inc. (SPFI) to proceed with preparation of the required bond offering documents unanimously approved. 6. Discussion and possible recommendation to renew the contract with CSG International as the City’s vendor for utility bill printing and mailing services and approve funding at an annual cost of $190,800 - Leticia Zavala, Customer Care Manager and Micki Rundell, Chief Financial Officer The City negotiated a 5 year contract with CSG International in 2008, through an inter-local agreement with the City of Plano, to provide utility bill printing and mailing services. The City of Plano released a Request for Proposal (RFP) in August 2012 for bill presentment services and an extension was obtained until February 24, 2013 to allow a final contract to be negotiated. Individually, the City of Georgetown processes and mails approximately 28,000 – 30,000 bills (including late notices) per month but with the economies of scale obtained with the cooperative, the pricing secured by the City of Plano is less than rates we could secure if we went through our own RFP process. Pricing for this service is based on total volume and the City of Plano has a volume in excess of 100,000 bills per month One of our goals for last year was to provide an email option for customer bill presentment. We released this option in the summer and currently have 1,020 participants which is approximately 4% of the customer base. The City currently pays approximately $0.530 per bill, which averages about $0.14 for all printing and insertion costs along with $0.39 for all applicable postage. Postage rates have increased in the past year, which have impacted the cost. Seventy-five percent (75%) of the estimated annual contract cost of $190,800 is related to postage expense and equates to $143,100. The total cost for this year is $190,800 (30,000 (bills/month) x .530 (rate) x 12 (months)) and is funded in the 2012-2013 Customer Care budget, under Contracts and Leases GL#540-5-0321-51-310 in the Joint Services Fund. Unanimously approved. 7. Discussion and recommendation to authorize payment of transaction fees to Tyler Technologies for online web payment processing in the amount of $67,500 – Leticia Zavala, Customer Care Manager, Micki Rundell, Chief Financial Officer Leticia explained that Insite is the City’s online payment program for utility and municipal court payments made via the website. This program was implemented in July 2006 and is used by Customer Care and Municipal Court customers to pay their utility bills and court fines on the City’s website. Customer Care processes approximately 26,200 payments per month. Online payments account for 14% of this total. We have seen a slight increase of about 1.5% in web payments over the past year. Customer Care receives 3,700 payments (on average) per month through the website. The above cost includes web publishing fees, customer inquiry fees, and transaction fees, broken down in the schedule below: Web Publishing / Municipal Court $ 900 Customer Inquiry / Municipal Court $ 900 Web Publishing / Utility Office $ 600 Customer Inquiry / Utility Office $ 9,600 Transaction Fees $ 55,500 (Estimated at 44,400 transactions) $ 67,500 The Web Publishing fees and the Customer Inquiry fees are a fixed annual cost. The transaction fees are $1.25 each and based on the number of utility payments taken through the website. An estimate of 44,400 transactions was used for 2013 based on 3,700 payments per month This transaction fee would ordinarily be passed along to the customer, but the City has chosen to absorb the fee because passing along any transaction or convenience fees for Utility payments disqualifies the City from both the Visa and Mastercard Interchange Utility Rate of $.75 per transaction. Depending on the type of card used, normal credit card fees could be anywhere from .89% to 2% of the transaction, and would apply to all credit card transactions, not just the Insite online payments. If the City was disqualified from the Interchange Program, an average charge of $500 would cost the customer anywhere from $4.45 to $10.00 instead of the utility absorbing a set rate of $.75. Unanimously approved. 8. Overview of upcoming Public Safety Training Operations Center (PSTOC) Data Center Study – Mike Peters, Information Technology Director Mike explained that the new PSTOC building is being designed to include a second data center location for the City, which will provide resiliency for critical computer systems in the event of a building or equipment failure at the current GCAT data center. To achieve the necessary systems resiliency, design work needs to be completed addressing all major technologies used in the data center (including server virtualization, desktop virtualization, networking, storage replication, etc.). The objective of this effort is to determine how the two data centers will interact during normal operations, and also how systems will be shifted between data centers during both planned and unplanned shutdown events. Once a design is selected, we will work to develop a budgetary estimate for the PSTOC data center implementation in time for the FY 2014 budget. Information Technology and Purchasing recently released an RFP soliciting consulting assistance for this project, and we expect to select a vendor by late February/early March to begin the analysis. This discussion will summarize the objectives of the project and provide an update on the evaluation process. We expect to request Council approval of the selected bidder by late February/early March. 9. Discussion on date/time for a Special GGAF meeting in March – Micki Rundell, Chief Financial Officer The committee agreed to hold a special GGAF Meeting on March 6th at 10:00 a.m. in the Friends of the Library Room to discuss the Albertson’s Feasibility Study prior to the March 12th Council Meeting. Unanimously approved. 10. Adjourned at 4:15 p.m.