MINUTES
BOARD OF FINANCE
MARCH 20, 2007
A REGULAR MEETING of the Board of Finance was held on Tuesday, March 20, 2007 in the Council Chambers.
Those in attendance included Mayor Ryan J. Bingham, members of the Board of Finance Daniel Farley, Bruce Cornish, Mark Bushka, and James Zeller, Corp. Counsel Ernestine Yuille Weaver, Comptroller Alice Proulx, Police Chief Robert Milano, Deputy Fire Chief Jaye Giampaolo, and Emergency Management Coordinator, Tom Vannini. Board of Finance member James Nichol was absent.
Mayor Bingham called the meeting to order at 5:03 p.m.
MINUTES #015
On a motion by Mr. Cornish, seconded by Mr. Zeller, the board voted unanimously to accept the minutes of the regular meeting held March 6, 2007. (Adjourned from 02/20/07.)
OPEN TO THE PUBLIC #020
On a motion by Mr. Farley, seconded by Mr. Cornish, the board voted unanimously to open the meeting to the public. There was no public participation.
PRESENTATION: CITY AUDIT #030
Bill Sawicki, from Sawicki & Lombardozzi, made a presentation in regard to the city’s audit for fiscal year ending June 30, 2006.
Mr. Sawicki noted that he made an unqualified opinion on the city’s financial statements, which meant that the materials and statements were fairly presented in according with auditing standards as well as the government auditing standards.
He noted that pages 3 through 13 was the Management’s Discussion and Analysis where they get the Comptroller’s take on the financial results and position of the city. It compares 2005 to 2006 in terms of significant areas, trends, developments in capital projects, general fund, debt, etc. pages 14 and 15 reports on GASB34 which takes all funds of the city except the pension and trust funds and collapses them into a single column presentation. Here, you will see items such as bonds being reflected as a liability, compensated absences, money owed for leases, etc.
Mr. Sawicki said page 20 depicts the general fund budget versus the actual, which shows how the money came in and went out by department and by function compared to the general fund budget. Pages 56 through 60 expands on what departments are general government, public safety and public works, and the same thing for revenue, what’s considered general government revenue into governmental.
Mr. Sawicki reported that the city had an excess of revenues over expenditures of about $1.6 million, which when added to your previous fund
balance, comes to $9.2 million as a budgetary fund balance.
Pages 21 through 25 are other accounting statements; i.e. WPCA, internal service fund for insurance, the pension fund, and the agency fund, which are student activity funds, and money that’s held in trust that’s administered for the benefit of other groups that the city does not take in its revenues and expenditures.
Pages 42 to 46 reports on the city’s various kinds of debts; i.e., bonds, water fund note, compensated absences, land fill, pension obligation, etc.
Pages 68 through 70 is a delineation of the city’s fixed, capital assets including buildings, land improvements, and where they are and how they are allocated.
The Schedule of Debt Limitation, mandated by State Statute, is shown on page 72. This shows what the city would be allowed to borrow for general improvement, sewers, schools, urban renewal, pension funding, etc.
He pointed to the last line that says “In no event shall your debt exceed seven times your base.” The city’s base happens to be about $400 million dollars.
Mr. Sawicki reported that the city has both, the federal single audit, because the city spent over half a million dollars in federally derived money, and the state single audit, because the city spent over $100,000.00 in state derived money. (For the year ending 2006, the city spent almost $4 million dollars in federally derived money, and almost $30 million in state derived money.)
Federal findings are shown on pages 10 through 13, and state findings are shown on pages 22 through 25. The findings relate mostly to documentation issues and procedural matters involving the school lunch program, Title I, and the home care program. Mr. Sawicki’s recommendations are included to clean up what his firm saw as a glitch in the system. The last two pages are the city’s responses to their findings, and what the city said they will do to fix what they found and said were exceptions. That will be looked at in the next audit.
Mr. Sawicki said the report includes a two-page Management Letter whereby various items were sited that don’t rise to the level of importance of including them within the bound reports. The first, a repeat from prior years, was to tighten up the monitoring of contract terms. The other item which bears repeating is in the area of post employment benefits. In 2008, GASBY will have what’s known as a “Statement 45", which will ask every municipality to look at its retirees and its post employment benefits provided, and that liability factor will be considered. An actuary will most likely be necessary to put the data in summary form.
Finally, Mr. Sawicki reported that his firm did not have any exceptional issues to report, there were no difficulties encountered, no retention issues, no consultations with others that they became aware of, no disagreements with management, nor did they have to make any significant or material adjustments.
Mr. Zeller asked Mr. Sawicki if the board should have any concern for the intergovernmental revenue being short.
Mr. Sawicki said it was a concern to Torrington as well as to every other municipality. All they could do is go by their best indicators when setting a budget, and go by the indicators and estimates presented by their legislators.
Ms Proulx said at least $3 million included in the intergovernmental amount is for two projects of about $1.5 million each that’s budgeted in the revenue side as well as the expenditure side. If the work is not done, the expenditure won’t be used up and neither will there be revenue to offset it. She will be budgeting it again this year in the same manner.
On behalf of the board, Mayor Bingham thanked Mr. Sawicki for his presentation.
WARN PUBLIC NOTIFICATION SYSTEM #610
On a motion by Mr. Cornish, seconded by Mr. Bushka, the board voted unanimously, after a brief discussion, to accept the Council’s request to use a total of $11,200.00 from Contingency, from which $7,200 will be used to enter into the WARN Public Notification System and $4,000 will be used to purchase equipment to shelter pets. The entire amount of $11,200.00 will be reimbursed by Homeland Security.
RESCUE TOOLS : FIRE DEPT. #725
On a motion by Mr. Cornish, seconded by Mr. Farley, the board voted unanimously to accept the Council’s request to use $24,000.00 from Contingency to purchase rescue tools for the Fire Department from Shipman’s Fire Equipment. Funds will be reimbursed from Homeland Security.
Mr. Farley stated that the Board of Finance accepted the Council’s recommendation on November 28 to award the bid entitled Rescue Tools to Shipman’s Fire Equipment Co. for 53,861.00. He asked Deputy Chief Giampaolo if the homeland security offer came up after the city purchased those tools.
Deputy Chief Giampaolo said yes. He explained that the acceptance of the grant requires the city to be involved in a program to purchase tools. In other words, they won’t give the city money just to purchase one tool. Since the city had already replaced three tools, they were able to justify getting the fourth tool from homeland security because it would improve the service they can provide to the 35,000 residents in the community.
BULLET PROOF VESTS: POLICE DEPT. #860
On a motion by Mr. Cornish, seconded by Mr. Zeller, the board voted unanimously, after a brief discussion, to accept the Council’s request to use UP TO $21,000.00 from Contingency to purchase bullet proof vests for the Police Department, which will be reimbursed from the federal government.
Mr. Zeller noted that the city will use $21,000.00 from the $27,000,00+ grant, and asked Chief Milano whether the city could utilize the entire $27,000.00 and use less of the forfeiture funds.
Chief Milano indicated that the program limited the Police Department to replace 76 bullet proof vests. He stated that the vendors were involved in a bidding war amongst themselves. The lowest price is $530.00 for a vest that would normally retail at $870.00. In the end, there will be no cost to the city.
BUS: MAYOR & MEMBERS #1050
On a motion by Mr. Cornish, seconded by Mr. Farley, the board voted unanimously to consider business presented by Mayor Bingham and members of the Board of Finance.
Mr. Cornish said he will not be able to attend the pre-budget meetings and asked if any of his colleagues would be interested in taking his place.
Mr. Cornish noted that the Board of Education will be ready to deliver their budget to the city on schedule.
Mayor Bingham commended the Police Department for their fine work in drug enforcement and for being able to make large purchases with drug forfeiture funds.
ADJOURNMENT #1140
On a motion by Mr. Cornish, seconded by Mr. Zeller, the board voted unanimously to adjourn at 5:36 p.m.
CAROL ANDERSON
Recording Secretary
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