Orono finance committee advances budget calendar and annual charges

[0:04] Jacob Baker: Hello viewing world, welcome to the September 28th meeting of the Orono Town Council Finance Committee. We have, thank you, I'm sorry I could not think of your name, thank you. We have myself Jacob Baker, Andrea Harrison, Zach, and Clint. Unfortunately, Sarah will not be able to join us tonight. So without further ado, the first item on our agenda is to review our chart as part of our instructions from ECAP. We have to do this every single year. This is the charge that we had discussed a couple of committee meetings ago. I still think that it accurately reflects what we are supposed to do, but I am open to suggestions. [1:16] Clint: I think it's right on target. Perfect. [1:19] Jacob Baker: Zach, Glenn, have any thoughts? You're trying to come, I know, but yes, I mean I'm okay with that, it sounds good to me, it sounds exactly what we're doing, perfect, yep, all right, that will go to council then along with the other committee's charges. And then the next line is to do a report about what we were assigned to do this year and what we actually did. So I had, for purposes of this meeting, I had sent a quick summary based on my notes from last a couple times ago when we discussed this. I will pull them up, but what's the first one, exactly, the point is, I'm sorry, the first one as the old fire station, old fire, yes. So my summary was that is still ongoing, and I have talked to the count the troop about potentially finding a leasing partner, they're working on that, but in my mind this is still ongoing. If they come back to us and they found a leasing, then of course any, everything would have to be discussed the council, but still moving forward, so yeah, cool, paid family medical leave, yes, what did, so we went with a different provider, that's the one that I couldn't remember, yes, so we worked with Acadia Benefits, and we [3:06] Andrea Harrison: ended up going through the Guardian for our coverage plan. The main reason was that there's a significant cost savings both the employee and the town, and then there's some kind of added benefits of having Acadia Benefits being one of our middleman manager, and then the Guardian working [3:23] Jacob Baker: With us as well, yeah, we left the state plan. That's right, that's right, yeah, okay, yeah, okay, but that's done, yeah, perfect. Workers comp, that one also is complete. Until we are ready to do the entire package out to bid, it doesn't make sense to just remit it, safer. That was one where it looks like there were some discrepancies because it's still on our action active list. However, I thought we decided that this specific charge was complete, and if there are additional requests in the future [4:05] Zach: they would come to the normal process. Is that yes, okay, and I mean, and one castle was considered [4:11] Jacob Baker: Yeah, it wasn't. So can we mark that as complete then on the items currently assigned? Or what do I need? Do I need to fill out a form? [4:25] Zach: I think you need to fill out. I mean, in a perfect scenario, the forms are there to close out. Okay. But no, I don't think you need to as long as you're closing them because of this annual process. That's why I said to Sarah where the meeting is being built on. That's the point. Because I figured that they'd get to a place where they weren't being closed out, but at least we would make the acknowledgement they are not. [4:43] Jacob Baker: So then why don't I complete this form? I'm just pulling it up right now and send it to you, Clint, and we can follow the process. But essentially, it's that task is when if people want more than the less for more thing. OK. And then the final one, budget review. Yes, we passed the budget and it's been done. [5:11] Speaker E (unidentified): not so any [5:14] Zach: other charges that we yeah did you Andrea did you read my email notes yes did [5:23] Jacob Baker: I say yes but yeah okay do you have any changes before they go to Council let me know okay basically that's all right so cool all right do you know off the top of your head Clint when these when this has gone to the entire council theater village second meeting in october [5:41] Speaker E (unidentified): and [5:44] Zach: it's going to be in consent calendar perfect and if you want to make more changes to what's [5:51] Jacob Baker: being changed they have to be pulled nope i don't okay perfect all right budget calendar fiscal 28 eight that [6:03] Speaker E (unidentified): is you so [6:06] Zach: For the B annual, we've updated this because, as we're learning this, the, you know, there's different timings that we need to do. Yeah, and it kind of makes sense. We were getting the budget ready on how we were going to go through with putting a plan in place, and then we weren't really approving until December and January. So kind of the thought came up with, let's get the budget calendar up to us now. So I don't think we need to share it. Don't I mean, it's, it's there for people that interview with me. They can, it's in the agenda, you can pull it up, but staff and I met, we've gone over the calendar preliminarily, and we laid out some of the things we learned from last year. I actually wrote a draft of this calendar right after the end of the budget season last year, okay, because there were so many thoughts and notes that I had on this that I want to make sure we began. So then there had to be a few tweaks since then because there's just, you know, even though it sounds right once you put the pieces. Together. So September we met, October we have done some very early capital improvement programming stuff, so I put that on the calendar. November 9th starts beginning where, if you're good with what you hear today, you would approve this calendar to take to the Council for the November 9th meeting. December 14th we would set the public hearing for the capital improvement program and the final budget. And so as those will show up here a little bit, we move on. December 15th was when the department heads would have a, we have a little bit of a team meeting, we go over through everything in the budget, Zach puts out a lot of information to them, Zach waiting, we push this back a little bit just to kind of make the dates work with audit that's coming in and so forth. Then in January I started my initial meetings with the department heads on their budgets, and kept on the 20th you would receive the. Capital improvement program of January. On February 1st is the workshop of the capital improvement program, and on February 8th we would do updates, and then February 22nd is the council finalizes the CIP for the hearing, and March 4th is when we finish the internal budget stuff. March 8th is when you'd have your hearing on the capital improvement plan. So this is a little further out, we pushed things a couple weeks back because we finished the cattle improvement program too soon and we weren't able. To roll into the budget as quick, so we're kind of like playing with the timelines a little bit, starting a little later, ending up later last year, and it feels a little bit earlier. But no, March 8th ended up being a little bit later than what last year was. We did it at the last meeting in February, and we realized was rushed, and we ended up bumping it an extra week, so we changed it after we started it. So this is similar to last year but later than what we originally intended, then the March 8th. After you approve the public, after the public hearing and approve them, we do that the same night. You would then approve it because you've already seen it when you take it out. That's where the big picture night happens, like we did last year, where I can kind of give you, if the state has put out municipal revenue sharing numbers, I can share some of those. If state subsidy numbers are in, some other places are out, but overall we can begin to paint what's going on. You know, if I was doing it today. Inflation is catching us. Fuel oil and energy costs are going to be a big part of next year's budget conversation, but luckily we're not starting it today, and we had time to see if something changes. It won't, you know. This is also after I would add some meetings with council would have our, you know, what your budget expectations would be, and then the draft of the summary budget would be shared with you. So you remember last year we had the summary was the first eight ten pages. You wouldn't see one. Of those straps preliminary, no backup, no supporting details, because it helps us see where the mill rate is. Yeah, gives you a more informed discussion with us to say, oh whoa, that looks high, can we come lower, can we what can we do. So the goal is to have some sort of a backbone of a budget for the March 8th. Then we would finish the budget on the 18th. It would be formatted and printed for the for the staff's recommendation, the council. We would send it out to you on the 18th. The workbooks would be. Distributed to the council and posted online, and then on the 22nd, which is just about a week later, it would be presented to you, and then on March 29th would be your first meeting to talk to staff, which is that one night meeting now where we all come in and they're all there, but we have done a lot of prep work with you, so it's more of a Q&A night than it is a presentation night. That seems to have been supported by staff and council because a good change from last year's better use of our time. Better use of your time. Then on the 5th, we would have a full workshop. So almost you're looking from the date that you see the budget on the 18th, you know, you're three weeks later where you're having your first real intensive workshop. You would list out all the items you want, anything that's outstanding, and anything you need more follow-up on. The 12th is a backup meeting if we want it. New this year is on the 15th, we would finalize our expense budget. There's no meetings on the 20th and 20 and 24th. This is when Zach will enter it into Trio because TRIO catches any anomalies. Then we noticed that the past two years that we entered in and we didn't catch because TRIO forces you to have a balanced budget. So when we did it last year, we realized that there were some, wasn't that we didn't do them. We hadn't formalized things that we needed to do. So we came back and said, you got to formalize what we've decided because it needs to zero out. So we liked that. So that means when you have your workshop on the 26th, staff will be looking for 100% certainty that it's balanced budget. Budget and then you would have your final Council review discussion of the budget. This little line here in the middle of the 26th and the 10th, the town expects to receive a proposed school budget for the validation vote. They've actually confirmed with us that we need to have a meeting on May 2nd, and so this is where it's a 10-minute meeting where we get together and countersign the school budget for validation. So wait, so we haven't done this in the past. You've done it during one of your meetings, but there's a flaw in state law, the absentee balloting. So they want to get this done. You've got to countersign. They're going to have it two weeks before their actual budget meeting with their district budget meeting. And then a district budget meeting is when it starts the absentee balloting. So in order to hit this window as cleanly as we could, we thought that May 2nd is the best day for you to do it. If you're okay with this, means we have. Pat, and we talked about this, you need to come in and vote, because town's history is that the council votes to approve the school budget for validation. Okay, so it's a quick meeting, and the 10th is too late, and the week before is too soon. Why is it too soon? Because they're out on school break week, falls in that third fourth week of the end of April. Okay, so you can't meet, it would be the 19th, they're 19th, or the 26th, they're kind of busy. The 26 is when they meet, is when we meet, they have their meetings to finalize their budgets at the school level to bring to you. [13:28] Jacob Baker: Okay, so they wouldn't have their budget ready for us to tell me a second. Okay, so why do we have to vote, but is it, yeah, why do we have to validate, schools can't set a [13:43] Zach: a warrant article, so you have to call the vote, and that's per state law too. And I pointed out the school this year, I said it would be really nice, because I worked in schools, if you would advocate with through the Main School Teaching Superintendents Association, or through school board members, this is a flaw that could be fixed in the law. They just, it's just too hard, and there's so many what ifs, it's just really hard to hit it, so this is the way we've never candidly, they missed it prior years and we end up with this window where people could vote by absentee, and you can't take them, we're not allowed to take absentee votes on a school budget that hasn't had a district budget meeting. Okay, so this came, they took it to their attorneys, this was the suggestion that came back from the school's attorneys, that this would be the optimal way to handle it if we could. [14:31] Jacob Baker: So this sounds ridiculous and inefficient, to bring everybody in for a 10-minute meeting [14:38] Zach: to have, well this is why I'm bringing it to you, because the thoughts were is you want to realign your meetings, the problem here is that it means moving out of Erie on the budget back to May 2nd instead of, oh something's off on the states, May 2nd, May 10th, I got a typo that [14:59] Jacob Baker: can't be May 7th, it's going to be May 3rd, yeah regardless, I mean, and I will defer to, yeah, the rest of the committee on this, but calling a special meeting for. [15:14] Clint: We have the option of zooming in to say yes or no, or do we have to be here to sign the Warren sign? [15:21] Zach: So, he's got, we got to have enough signatures to put it together. [15:25] Jacob Baker: Yeah, so let's, my preference would be to align our calendar with when we need to vote on this. [15:35] Zach: Yeah, so that's kind of what I was wondering, but it's gonna push us. Oh, where'd it go? Just kind of I'm under reading with you because I got the emails, so a lot. Shelly's put a lot of work with, and kudos to the school as well. They put in a lot, I mean working with their attorneys to come up with plans and suggestions. I told them I was coming to you and the council would set this for the for the November, and I said until that it's formally adopted, I said I would advocate for this as being the approach the [16:18] Clint: only concern about combining them, Jacob, is we're going to have, we have, we're going to have line items to look at and cost for the town. I don't want that to get up in discussing the school budget. Yeah, and but we're not really from my [16:40] Jacob Baker: understanding discussing the school budget. I mean, we can either decide to vote yes or no on it. I mean, in my mind that doesn't, that's a, if people have real concerns about the school budget, they should participate in the school budget process and vote no on whatever Davis is, so the [17:03] Zach: I don't envision a long discussion, so here's the way. April 28th is the quickest they can get us the budget warrant, April 28th, and we are meeting the 26th, correct, per this, so that's two days too soon. You wouldn't have it. Okay, you can sign it through tell me 18th, but again you got to post at least 21 days before the referendum vote, so the suggestion was is if you did that, their annual budget meeting is going to be May 5th. If we signed it on May 2nd, we can start accepting the absentee ballots on May 6th, which coincides with it with being more than 21 days before the [17:43] Speaker E (unidentified): June 8th meeting. Trust [17:49] Zach: me, anybody wants to take the lead on it so we can, and I'm gonna, I've been [17:52] Clint: hit for making sure that we give residents enough time to submit their. Yeah, and that's [18:00] Jacob Baker: that's fine, and the school budget referendum can't be pushed back five days so that we can. [18:11] Zach: They're the dates they've hit are the dates of work because of the commitments the school has and what they're trying to be for that, so it's it's we've had those conversations and it would, we would push it out much more than a week, which we miss the 12, 21 days. All right, from our back to my standpoint though, if you want, we could shave a week because we set May 10th as the public hearing on the town budget. I'm not suggesting we, so we have the extra if needed. We usually meet the first and thirds of the month. If you were okay, I think we could stick with the first and thirds [Speaker E (unidentified): words and] What we would do is that is that we would have the hearing on the 17th, okay with me, yeah, and then that would push you to we had an extra in between, we would not have that extra week, you would have you'd have the hearing and then one week later you would have to adopt the budget. So you see we had regular meetings on the 10th and the full 24th, we're going to have to work with a lot of back-to-back to meetings, so that's why I'm looking there's so many meetings in the month of May we've got the room to maneuver this because one of them's a hold [19:24] Jacob Baker: I know my only concern with that is from a transparency standpoint if there are significant questions issues of the hearing which they're very likely but then for us to, we couldn't vote on the budget the next week. [19:49] Zach: So you can move the council public hearing one week early. The problem with that is that our final budget work was going to be the 26th. So that gives us time to get everything ready for the 10th. That's why we gave ourselves the extra time coming into it. So we'd have to slide everything back a little bit. But it's only one week. I mean, you're only talking about if you move back, but I wouldn't like when the budget's ready and done, I wouldn't do anything. I just think what you could do is that if you look at the 22nd and 29th of March, when I present the budget, that could be the same nine staffs there for the Q&A. You then eliminate the 29th meeting completely, and that buys you that extra week you need. [20:39] Jacob Baker: So I'm fine redoing the calendar so long as we are not voting on the budget the week after the hearing, okay, I mean unless you feel different Andrew, but I mean if something comes up that [20:55] Clint: you're it likely won't but still if it does it likely won't but I think yeah two in comparison person to the year before and then this past year I want to make sure that if when there are changes we have the opportunity to see where those yeah cuts and changes are I don't feel like we had a lot of time this past budget season to see what was actually for everything that was getting cut [21:26] Zach: or realigned yeah between the departments me so if you're getting that's it that's the whole process the more you tell us up front the less there is of that the more we wait and wait might hope for the best and the harder it gets the finish line and that's why I really like what we do May 31st is a Monday so we could utilize May 31st into this mix that's a great question gotta be damn close to that I thought it was into I [22:02] Jacob Baker: Mean, if we have to do this, that's fine. I think it's [22:09] Zach: ridiculous, but well, right now this is also 100 compliant with our goals for observing all religious holidays. We are not hitting any. It's been fully reviewed by staff, and I was like, [22:22] Jacob Baker: we can't go back on that after. So you are correct, Memorial Day is May 31st. Yeah, so we can't, that first, so leave it as is. I, this is, if I'm on Council next year, that I really hope it's not like this, because this is ridiculous, but, and this is not a commentary on here, it's at all, I understand. [22:45] Zach: Hey, I'm not taking it too personal. Why don't we though, so this still has to go to the council, so they're going to have to see this. So this means a very short meeting, the first meeting of May, public hearing on May 10th, so kind of bigger picture, and I know we did it this way [23:04] Jacob Baker: last time, but should, or is there, would there be any benefit to having our council's big picture discussion before the department heads start putting together the budget, because [23:22] Zach: I tried that my first year, and you guys wanted context. Got it. Because you didn't know if we needed to cut it, but we were going, I'm going to clean. [23:30] Jacob Baker: Don't you know what we say, one year doesn't matter the next? Okay. [23:35] Zach: We did try that. And we kind of hit it, and it kind of felt at the end, like, well, if there was more, it kind of felt like, well, what do you need? So we kind of did this team-based presentation. This is where we feel we need to be. Gotcha. And that's kind of where, like, sneak peek, we talked about this, that if things go well over the next few years, I can see that where there's, like, three budget recommendations coming in a simplified form, which is status quo, growth, and then a reduction kind of suggestion right out the door. I got to be careful. I want to work this with a team. But right now, the budget you get every year is maintained. It's a maintained budget. You know, if there's growth changes, I tell you what we're increasing. Increasing, if there's a reduction, we tell you what we're reducing. So the idea is not to give you a thing that's this is how we want to move the community forward and spend more, or this is how we want to reduce spending and lower taxes. Yeah, spoiler alert, we balance the budget by drawing [24:31] Jacob Baker: on reserves during every year, and we came that this year because of our policy. So it's going, it's going to be interesting. Yeah, sorry, what do you have to say, Andre, Andrew, what are your [24:45] Clint: Thoughts, I've been talking a lot. No, I like hearing what your thoughts are. Yeah, you know, I mean, I know it having a short meeting on the second just to talk about to do that school budget. [Andrea Harrison: But also,] could that also open up for us, Clint, that if there are extra questions in the council, the council meeting workshop, that those could also be answered within May 2nd so we could [25:16] Zach: actually add that it may it's may 3rd i'm going to fix that and switch that to may 3rd but we could add that main third and workshop if council chooses could we do the hearing on may 3rd the budget hearing you just would have to you said you want the budget finalized two weeks prior [25:35] Jacob Baker: which that puts us finalizing, well no, so we have the hearing on the third and then we don't adopt it until whatever the 17th or the 24th. That gives us a chunk. I just didn't want it heard and then approve the next week, that way if there are any big changes to hearing we can make, so we can [25:55] Zach: do the regular meeting that night on May 3rd. Yes, we would eliminate the 10th. Yes, the 17th would become this Council adoption of the budget, and you could have made 10th still as a backup meeting if wanted to have more conversation. So you'd end up slicing off, you would adopt, so this would move it even earlier for a budget adoption. You'd be adopting it on the 17th, or we can still keep [26:17] Jacob Baker: the 24th. I don't care, but it puts a, it gives a purpose in the May 2nd meeting other than just [26:23] Zach: voting on fast. Okay, so let me fill that ID by, if you had the hearing on the third, yep, and that's the regular council meeting, yep, what if you held both the 10th and the 17th as open dates if needed, if needed, and you do something weird, you meet your meeting the first Monday and the fourth Monday in the month of May, but that gives a whole huge window in there for a lot of budget work if you get really wanting to dive in. So it's an option to end up having, I like that idea. [26:53] Clint: Yeah, it flows into our transparency commitment, and yeah, I like that for the budget season, some type of a link or something that if one of us, a council member or a resident has questions and that question is submitted, we can all see the question what the answer was. [27:15] Jacob Baker: We tried a Google document the first year and it just, yes. So anyways, that's a good idea. Yeah, I [27:23] Clint: got me watching somebody has a question on something. It might, that question and the answer might alter what someone else might be questioning or going with, as long as it doesn't become too time consuming. [27:42] Speaker E (unidentified): Any income, right, so yes, so. [27:51] Zach: I guess so, on a virtual tracker, virtual real-time [27:59] Clint: tracker. I just think it's important where we know that costs in the economy are. It might even be worse. So, okay. [28:15] Zach: So regular and hearing on May 3rd, 5 10 and 5 17 are hold for workshops, and then 5 24 it'll be all about the council meeting. So is that what you think? I can put that together, that will put the council budget calendar around that as well. So that would change our annual council budget, council calendar would be reflective of this as well. So your regular meetings would be the first and fourth in May. For me that's fine, we've been moving them around something like that as long as we get to a month. Right now one a month sounds even better somewhere. It's, it's funny how we fall behind when it's one a month, but it's so much more productive, active meetings. I'm sorry, that's my thing right now. You asked me today, so let's, okay, sorry, that'll go to Council next time, that will be on the November 9th agenda, so you'll have, you got [29:12] Jacob Baker: the 5th and the 19th between then. Do we as a committee, and this is an open-ended question, want to go through the binder to determine if there are any pieces that can be cut, that can be, I mean, we did a good job, you've done a good job at streamlining the budget from the first year I was here, but I still think that the bucket drip package could be made smaller, especially given the progress you made last year? [29:54] Zach: Thinking out loud. Yeah. What have you to do? I mean, this committee could do a short workshop. The council's agreed. [30:01] Jacob Baker: That's yeah. I don't want to do it to the council, no. [30:03] Zach: Not to the council. And I wouldn't do it on a regular meeting night where you've got your regular business on. Well, no. So if we just pick some time that was kind of convenient and where we, you know, we just pick a date amongst the five of us, whoever the new, cause you'll have a new member and we just kind of sit down and say, you know what, or I kick it all out to you and you do not reply all, just share comments back to me and I put that together as a summary and you could each make your own notes of things you think that, you know, it doesn't have to be eliminate page 11. It could be I'm looking at page 11. Isn't that redundant to page 38? Yeah. [30:35] Andrea Harrison: So we could do that way. I like that idea because there were some format changes and some things you and I have talked about wanting to change and improve just for clarity's sake on [30:43] Zach: Something like this that might be going to be later, yeah, be very helpful to us because last year it felt like we kind of got rolling into it and also genuine memory, it's like okay let's dig into this again and it was great but it got so close it gets yeah so if we could yeah I don't mind so give you last year's budget mind here yeah and then there probably are some things [31:04] Jacob Baker: that we might want to eliminate and you'll explain to us why they should be in the binder and that's [31:11] Zach: fine awesome so why don't you maybe share it to council meeting like during your committee reports that you want to do that yeah that's all okay that's a great I want to hear all [31:22] Speaker E (unidentified): nice drawings all right so now that's good cool all right any other thoughts [31:38] Jacob Baker: on that yeah give a couple others you ever down to it well we're good tons of time we're doing well all right and so the next is review of the financials sorry my computer no audits all the audits yes that memo whatever yep so just short sweet memo [31:57] Andrea Harrison: Originally audit would have started on the 14th when I was flying solo and the new staff member starting on that day a few weeks beforehand I reached out to Casey and said hey I'm just I'm not prepared I didn't want to do what happened the previous fiscal year in FY24 was a lot of they picked it up put it down back and forth and I wanted to avoid that so maybe just reschedule everything to make it easier on both ends and it does reduce the overall cost from that pickup put down kind of process we ran into so November 30th is when it will start now cuts it a little close in the holiday season and everything but that was kind of the only spot they could squeeze [32:35] Jacob Baker: us in without revamping their entire audit season and I think I'm going to evaluate afterwards with [32:40] Zach: exact but it may be something that the September timeline maybe even for next year let's go in to next year if you could queue us into late October early November that would maybe give us a little bit more time as we're rolling in some new team yeah right I mean Amanda started three weeks ago and Gary started doing no well she's on the start yeah so the only thing I want [33:02] Jacob Baker: to be cognizant of is having the audits is helpful for the budget because especially as it pertains to a fund balance and so we don't run into the situation that we ran into this year with some miscalculations that's great one thing I've briefly spoken with Casey about that I want [33:23] Andrea Harrison: to do once we kind of get the team settled and caught up and everything gives me to get out more is i want to find some time with him to really build something we can use more routinely rather than waiting for the audit to have it locked in get them an agreement on some kind of a fund balance forecast or calculator so that we are on the same page and any numbers we put together can match up to the audit so we have that as a tool throughout the fiscal year and we were positive [33:48] Zach: last year then we were sure last year that i just was only my second year second budget we're We're getting closer to where I, my confidence level of putting a number out there publicly [33:58] Jacob Baker: is not going to burn. We now have a fund balance policy and we are a lot closer to that. Yeah. Means that there's less room for error. [34:08] Andrea Harrison: Yeah. And it's just in general, we've talked about building some new forecasting tools and things to help throughout, not just the budget process, but throughout the entire fiscal year. So it's one of the tools that I want to build. [34:18] Jacob Baker: So how many do you have on your finance staff? Like three. Three. three okay so there's yourself there's a yeah what are the players so there's myself a staff [34:28] Andrea Harrison: accountant and that payroll benefits the system okay I mean that was a little bit yeah and that's [34:33] Zach: a combination of some HR a little bit which are APAR it's a kind of a mixed bag for that one and [34:40] Jacob Baker: there's vacancies in none okay cool all right all right if you're good I want to try to get [34:47] Zach: I'm going to sneak out with you guys going to the July reviews. [34:53] Jacob Baker: Yeah, before we do that, I'm going to ask a question that I'm going to start asking every month related to what you just said. But yeah, I really would like to see a fund balance, a balance sheet, something as part of these reports. I know you don't have one, but I'm going to ask every month until we get one. Sounds good. [35:11] Zach: Nice. I'm going to a training and I'm going to ask everybody at the conference about what they do yeah i'll come back with a whole bunch of suggestions then we can close off okay cool somebody else got to be doing it well doing it decently oh yeah all right [35:26] Jacob Baker: do you go zag i mean it's it's one month so they're you know long i would say we're one [35:32] Andrea Harrison: month into a brand new fiscal year, so there's not a ton on there. There's a couple things that are just kind of pending. You can look at my notes if you'd like to. Really the only things that stood out to me on the expense summary, I made some notes here. I should have made copies for everybody, I apologize that I didn't. There is insurances is we're month in, we're 40 spent, that is workers comp. So the way that they do that is they break it up by quarters, then they front load the fiscal year, so there's two larger payments and then two smaller payments, so it doesn't break into that nice 25 for it, so that's why it looks high at this point. Capital infrastructure is currently overspent, that is just because there's some heading accidents to happen, so those were last year projects that the expense came in after the fiscal year turned over. So we just need to do some steps there. Rather than doing carry forwards, we're now moving everything to reserves at the end of the fiscal year and bringing them back out of reserves, so that just needs to happen. But with new staff and prepping for audit and everything, it's kind of at the bottom of my to-do list to be perfectly honest at the moment. Same thing with grants, there's some expenses that came in after the fiscal year turned over, and we just need to do some bookkeeping to catch that up, to put the budget set essentially. Same thing on the revenue side, so there's Grant expenses and revenues, and we just need to do a little catch up there on the budget entries. Otherwise nothing stands out, I mean across the board a month in everything's looking good as it can, and yeah with the with the two additional [37:09] Clint: staff members for you, that's going to help fit so that it's not like a catch-up thing that you'll [37:14] Andrea Harrison: have these ready. Yeah, there still might be some lack of time because usually like after accounts board is approved, one amanda gives us a copy of the finalized signed one, and that's what triggers us to go in and do the budget adjustment. So you might see just a bit of a timing thing on these reports. Hopefully once we're up and running we'll be catching everything up quicker and moving along quicker. We're hitting the ground running, we're doing great, I mean we're amanda's been with us for three weeks now this is her third week and Carrie's starting week two so Amanda's our payroll benefits assistant who carries a new staff accountant they're picking things up quick we're knocking things out for the audit and we're we're moving right along quite pleased with [37:53] Jacob Baker: that while they're doing them so from a municipal government accounting standpoint how do you handle that building in non-profit or for-profit it would live the project live on the balance sheet and then the expenses would flow through at the end the police station the police station [38:16] Andrea Harrison: good question so at this point like we recorded the purchase of the building and on our capital asset listing now the project itself really depends on kind of where it lands if it's it's more than likely going to land between fiscal years so in the past what we would do is essentially wherever they landed on the project whatever funds were left we would do a carry forward yeah so the new process that we've spoke with Clint so we don't have that big hit the fund balance carry forwards again is that any funds that are available at the end of the year will go to a dedicated reserve so if they're you know two hundred thousand dollars left over it will go to a reserve for that project we would then at the new fiscal year do a council order to essentially it'd be a two-part order moving those funds to reserves at the end of one fiscal year and then drawing them back out at the beginning of the new fiscal year but regardless you know [39:12] Jacob Baker: let's say half this fiscal other half next fiscal that you know a million dollars in costs and everything are not going to flow through our income statement correct now that's not going to be part of yeah the income statement that we see it's going to live on the balance sheet as an adjustment to the reserve fund balance yeah okay in that situation if we're drawing on [39:39] Andrea Harrison: reserves and if it's just a regular budgeted item you probably see that on the general fund balance because that's where we would draw down would be the general fund rather than reserves but either [39:49] Jacob Baker: way on the balance sheet not flow through to the expense there would be expenses as we pay it would show up on these expense reports maybe I'm not understanding your question Jacob and I'm probably not asking incorrectly so in a non-governmental entity any large capital project The expenses for the project are accounted for on the balance sheet under CIP construction and process. Yep. And then they only hit the income statement at the end of the project. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. So from a government standpoint, I'm considering what you present to us every month is the income statement. The police station project is not going to flow through our income [40:45] Speaker E (unidentified): statement. Correct. [40:48] Andrea Harrison: Okay. Yeah. We haven't looked at a balance sheet in a little while because we don't consistently have one. So you threw me a little bit there. So on those projects, like with our capital asset listing we do maintain a construction in progress listing just that so for like WPCF will be more like that where like for WPCF they do maintain a listing that has all their capital stuff in it but currently like for the town side well we have a capital asset listing we don't record it anywhere as an asset or construction in progress certainly we maintain a listing it's just not in our books essentially I might be explaining that poorly no I okay no I [41:27] Jacob Baker: You've sufficiently answered my question, and Andrew, we've sufficiently confused you. I'm good. Perfect. Okay. Awesome. That's what I got. And the last thing on that project, who is, do we have a construction monitor? [41:43] Andrea Harrison: Do you mean like the owner's rep? Yeah,. I don't know. I know Clint was working on something with it. I don't know where that all ended up. Okay. I'm so interested. This right goes to. Awesome. So that's fine. I can ask. [41:54] Speaker E (unidentified): one so cool all right anything else good all right anything else that we go to the order [42:02] Jacob Baker: perfect I think I'm good and we're adjourning