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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes_GGAF_07.28.2021Minutes General Government and Finance Advisory Board City of Georgetown, Texas Wednesday, July 28, 2021 at 4:30 PM The General Government and Finance Advisory Board met on Wednesday, July 28, 2021 at 4:30 PM at City Hall, 808 Martin Luther King Jr Street, Georgetown, Texas rd Members Present: Tommy Gonzalez, Chair Stu McLennan, Secretary Robert Witt Eric Corp Citv Staff Present: David Morgan, City Manager Leigh Wallace, Finance Director Elaine Wilson, Assistant Finance Director Eric Johnson, Facilities Director Trish Long, Facilities Manager Edward O'Neal, Support Services Manager Cindy Pospisil, Customer Care Manager Leticia Zavala, Customer Care Director Sharon Parker, Board Liaison Others resent: Regular Agenda: Tommy Gonzalez Called the meeting to order at 4:30 p.m. Board Members Absent: Kevin Pitts, Vice Chair A. Consideration and possible action to approve the minutes from the June 23, 2021 General Government and Finance Advisory Board Meeting — Sharon Parker, Board Liaison. Motion to approve the minutes as presented by L• ric Corp, second by Robert Witt. Approved 4-0, Kevin Pitts absent. B. Review any items that bypassed a GGAF meeting due to timing and went to Council —Tommy Gonzalez, Board Chair No items went to Council. C. Discussion and possible action to recommend proposed changes to the Fiscal and Budgetary Policies as part of the FY2022 budget development process. — Leigh Wallace, Finance Director Minutes General Government and Finance Advisory Board City of Georgetown, Texas Wednesday, July 28, 2021 at 4:30 PM Discussion: Leigh Wallace presented a annual update to the Fiscal and Budgetary Policies. Leigh discussed the Purpose of the updates and went over the proposed changes. Leigh discussed the next steps would be to receive GGAF feedback and recommendation to council, Council update in August and then to Adopt policies with budget in September. Leigh also noted that The Economic Development, Tourism, and the Arts & Culture departments were reorganized in 2021. After we had already posted this agenda Economic Development wanted to withdraw the recommendation for Public Art funding for this year. They want to see our tourism fund which is funded almost entirely by hotel occupancy tax make some more progress in recovering from the dip in revenue from the pandemic. Tommy — what was the thought process to put Arts & Culture under Economic Development? David —1. Eric Lasher retired and he filled the role with the program being under the library which was not traditional to be under the library but more with Eric's skillset. 2. Kim Mcauliffe our Downtown Manger has already been working heavily with the Arts & Culture program because of the partnership with the downtown work. We see this as an opportunity for Kim's position to grow as well as the strong partnership that they already had. Leigh we are updating the debt policy. Talking to our finance advisors and band council we are adding a variable rate and putting a limit on it to no more than 10% of the outstanding principle. Tommy — there is a public component there, we are either going to limit the term or take out certain types of debt that cannot use variable rates. I would not want to see a 25-year project on a variable rate. With shorter terms you can roll the dice on variable rates. Leigh — the dollar amount is limited. Leigh — let me take this question back to our financial advisor. Tommy — lets see what the maximum we take on variable debt. David —the goal from our standpoint is we see this as a limited but a valuable tool that we can use to bring all options to council when needed. Leigh — Now that we have successfully turned the electric fund around. For fiscal 2022 ending fund balance will be 36 million that's up from 2 million 3 years ago. We have had some discussion as to what should rate stabilization be. We are proposing the fund should be 3 months of purchase power cost. That's about 18 million. Tommy — is that a yearly average or a summer average. Leigh this is average of the 3 most expensive months. Robert — Where is the money kept? Leigh — it is in our reserves. Tommy is that in money markets or is it in CD's. Leigh- Core balances are in CD's. Tommy — do we have a staggering system if we need to access that money. Leigh —yes. Stu — as GGAF we said that we needed to add cyber security fraud awareness and electric utility to the risk management sector to the fiscal and budgetary policy, Tommy also said we needed to add contracts greater than 5 years needed to be reviewed by the appropriate board prior to council. Stu — Is this something that we need in there? Leigh — the cyber security and electric utility were added. Stu — but the fraud awareness and the contracts were not. Leigh —the fraud is in there on the last section of risk management. The cyber security and the electric risk management has been added also. David — I think this conversation back in 2019 was more of do we have any existing contracts that are longer than 5 years, if so, we need to look at them. The only contract now that we would have that is longer than 5 years would be TDS and Water contracts. David - we have a current risk management policy. Leigh — we take any contracts to the respective boards to approve before council. Tommy— we just need to have a vetting process that we have another set of eyes looking at the contracts. Eric — appreciate all the work that staff has done. Motion to recommend to the City Council the proposed changes to the Fiscal and Budgetary Policies as part of the FY2022 budget development process by Eric Corp, second by Stu McLennan. Approved 4-0. Keven Pitts absent. Minutes General Government and Finance Advisory Board City of Georgetown, Texas Wednesday, July 28, 2021 at 4:30 PM D. Consideration and possible action to recommend approval of a licensing Subscription Order form with Workday for an initial term of one year for $465,852 and authorize the City Manager to execute up to three one-year renewals of the Subscription Order Form for a total cost of $1,963,407. — Leigh Wallace, Finance Director Discussion: Leigh presented to the board a copy of the current contract and explained we are in the 2"d block of our contract years 4-7. Tommy — We are all in with workday, let's keep making it work. Stu — is the City still only using the HR, Finance, and Budget modules? Leigh —yes. Motion to recommend to the City Council the approval of licensing Subscription Order form with Workday as presented by staff by_ Stu McLennan , second by. Eric Corp . Approved 4-0. Keven Pitts absent. E. Consideration and possible action to recommend an annual agreement between the City of Georgetown and DataProse LLC for utility bill printing and mailing services with an annual not to exceed amount of $400,000.00 and to authorize the City Manager to execute renewals of the agreement for up to two additional on -year terms with the same terms and conditions for a total 3- year contract not to exceed amount of $1,200,000 — Cindy Pospisil, Customer Care Manager, Leticia Zavala, Customer Care Director. Discussion: Cindy presented the annual agreement between the City of Georgetown and DataProse. DataProse has been our provider since 2001, at that time there were the only provider. Last year GGAF recommended we go out for bid. We released an RFP in May and received 8 proposals. DataProse won by a hefty margin. The biggest advantage besides the price was since they are the current vendor, we did not have to do any implementation. They also mail from Texas; most other vendors would be from other states, and this would take longer. DataProse also mail on Saturdays. They also reduced the printing cost. In July we launched a campaign with communications to try and get more participation in the E-bill program. Right now, we have about 27% of customers participating in the E-bill program. Tommy — has anyone thought of anything new for a campaign that would get more people to sign up. Leticia — we are working with the communications department; they are very good at this to use different avenues to reach people. We also worked with some HOA's and Sun City to put flyers in newsletters. Tommy — one suggestion would be to let people know that if they sign up for E-bill you get 3 warning emails or text whatever they want. People are afraid they are going to forget. Stu — We have discussed this in Nov 2018, Feb 2020 and Dec 2020. Why not paperless, why don't we have a campaign for paperless billing, why doesn't the city charge for paper billing. Why isn't paperless the default and we are asking this again today? David —those are fair criticisms and what we will do is work with the council on some policy directions. I also just want to caution; a high percentage of our customers are seniors. We went through an implementation on CIS that had some major issues and people got off automatic bill pay so we have had to build trust back. There are also political elements in this as well. To create a policy to say you are cut off, you must opt in, or we are going to charge you for some of that. It is a fair point to say look how these costs are escalating. We are addressing the credit card fees now. we will make sure we bring a presentation to council before the end of the calendar Minutes General Government and Finance Advisory Board City of Georgetown, Texas Wednesday, July 28, 2021 at 4:30 PM year. Stu — are the return envelopes postage paid or do they have to put a stamp on them? They have to put a stamp on them. Motion to recommend to the City Council the annual agreement between the City of Georgetown and DataProse for utility bill printing and mailing services as presented by staff by Robert Witt second by Eric Corp. Approved 3-1. Stu McLennan no and Keven Pitts absent. F. Consideration and possible action to approve the purchase and installation of furniture from Core Office Interiors, through the Buyboard Contract #584-19 in the amount of $51,964,92. Eric Jonson, Public Works Director. Discussion: Eric presented item F and item G together, this is for the purchase of furniture from Core Office Interiors and the construction remodel for the Municipal Complex. Eric C. - How old is the building? Trish - we acquired it in 2004, it had been remodeled. Eric C — where are the employees going to be located during the remodel. Eric — in the front we will but we have already cleared out the whole front area except for 3 permit techs. We did a large shuffle to prepare for this renovation. Eric C — can you briefly go over the certificates of obligation, how they work? Leigh — is a type of debt that cities can issue, these are different than an obligation bond because those are voter approved. Tommy —what is the staff doing to better isolate staff and public areas at City Hall and the Georgetown Municipal Complex? People should not be able to jump over the desks and access staff areas. Eric — agreed and took for action. Stu — Why was there a $124,428 delta between the high and low bids? Eric —There was a large variance in the alternate bids. Motion to recommend to the City Council the approval of purchase and installation of furniture from Core Office Interiors as presented by staff by. Eric Carp, second by Stu McLennan Approved 4-0. Keven Pitts absent. G. Consideration and possible action to recommend a Construction Contract with Fineline Electric, Inc. of Georgetown, Texas for the Construction of Georgetown Municipal Complex Renovation Phase I, in the amount of $382,777. — Eric Johnson, Public Works Director Motion to recommend to the City Council to recommend a Construction Contract with Fineline Electric for the Construction of Georgetown Municipal Complex Renovation Phase I as presented by staff by Stu MGLennon, second by Robert Witt . Approved 4-0. Keven Pitts absent. Minutes General Government and Finance Advisory Board City of Georgetown, Texas Wednesday, July 28, 2021 at 4:30 PM Meting adjour at . _6:05 pm. Tommy Gonxa ez Board Chair Stu McLennar Board Secretary B -z 7jz Date � -7� Date