Finance Committee Meeting Minutes – August 16, 2017
For your consideration, please read the minutes from the Finance Committee Meeting that was held on August 16, 2017.
Finance Committee Minutes 8-16-17 with Attachments
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Brunswick-Glynn County Joint Water & Sewer Commission
1703 Gloucester Street, Brunswick, GA 31520
Commission Meeting Room
Wednesday, August 16, 2017 at 2:00 PM
FINANCE COMMITTEE MINUTES
PRESENT:
Donald M. Elliott, Chairman
Steve Copeland, Commissioner
Mike Browning, Commissioner
Jimmy Junkin, Executive Director
John Donaghy, Chief Financial Officer
ALSO PRESENT:
Thomas Boland, Sr., Deputy Director
Pam Crosby, Director of Procurement
Jay Sellers, Public Information Officer
Chairman Elliott called the meeting to order at 2:03 PM.
PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD
There being no citizens that wished to address the Committee, Chairman Elliott closed the Public Comment Period.
APPROVAL
- Minutes from July 19, 2017 Finance Committee Meeting
Commissioner Browning made a motion seconded by Commissioner Copeland to approve the minutes from the July 19, 2017 Finance Committee Meeting. Motion carried 3-0-0.
Surplus Property – 101 Hampton River Club Marina Drive – P. Crosby
Pam Crosby presented to the Committee a recommendation to declare a piece of property located at 101 Hampton River Club Marina Drive as surplus. The site was a former fire well and has a pump house enclosure. The property is no longer of any use to JWSC. Mrs. Crosby noted that staff would like to have the property declared as surplus and place it out for sealed bid for sale. She provided pictures of the lot, and noted that that there will be some work needed to be done before the lot is marketable as a residential lot. The well is not operational and will need to be abandoned and grouted. The tank is also not operational and will need to be removed as scrap. The building will need to be removed. There is also a transformer that Georgia Power will need to have relocated off of the property. Mrs. Crosby also advised that an appraisal cannot be done until the property has been made marketable. She added that there will be some costs to make it marketable, and those will be captured and deducted from the amount received from the sale. She included copies of quotes for the well abandonment and a map of the property.
Commissioner Copeland made a motion seconded by Commissioner Browning to move this item forward to the Full Commission for approval at the August 17, 2017 meeting. Motion carried 3-0-0.
DISCUSSION
- July End of Month Financial Comparative – J. Donaghy
John Donaghy presented the end of month financial report for July 2017 to the Committee, including the Balance Sheet, the Supplemental Schedule of Cash Balances, and the Revenue and Expenditure Statement for July 2017. He noted on the Supplemental Schedule of Cash Balances that there has been about $740K received for the SPLOST account. Mr. Donaghy added that at the beginning of August there was about another $400K received from SPLOST monies and also that after the costs for the pre-purchase of the pumps and components for the SPLOST Project that this account will be likely depleted and there may be a need to start using the line of credit JWSC has through BB&T Bank to fund some of those purchases. There was some additional discussion and clarification regarding the Customer Deposit Reserve. The Revenue and Expenditure Statement was then addressed and it was noted that this report has been condensed. He provided and explained some of the details from this report. The Bad Debt Expense YTD of $489 was questioned and Mr. Donaghy noted that this was not the actual amount of Bad Debt written off, but is a calculation required through the use of particular formula for reporting bad debts. He also explained that the Accounts Receivable going up causes the reserve number to go up. Chairman Elliott requested to see a report on the overtime detail at the Commission meeting on Thursday. There was some additional discussion regarding overtime costs and reducing this expense. Mr. Donaghy proceeded to discuss the collections and the collection efforts on bad debts with the Committee. He displayed the spreadsheet to be used by the collections personnel to track these accounts receivable, and also displayed the Innoprise system that is available and can be used for tracking. He noted that it gives automated information on the accounts along with other data. Mr. Junkin added that he would like to see the amount of everything collected so far, and also the accounts that have been paid in full. Chairman Elliott noted that he would like to be able to see how the $20.00 payment plans are doing, and expressed concern to endure that the CSR’s are advising these customers of agencies where they can go to for assistance. John then continued to advise that earlier in the week, a meeting was held with Harris Software regarding the Capital Projects Planning software module. They will be meeting weekly with the implementation representative. Mr. Donaghy moved on to explain the timeclock software Prism, which Teamworks is moving to from the online timeclock currently being used. It gives the ability to break the employee’s time into specific jobs, and can track actual time devoted to contracts, etc. Implementation is expected to begin with the pay period beginning 9/11/17. This software will also give the capability to request time off electronically with no timesheets necessary. OpenGov was the next point of discussion. Mr. Donaghy presented a powerpoint on OpenGov and discussed the personnel involved and the attributes of the system. The kickoff for the use was August 14, and some information is expected to be ready for use by mid-September. He also noted other users he has contacted who are very pleased with this system. There were some examples presented of the charts that will be available for review. John also went over the OpenGov website and showed some additional examples of how this system is used by other current customers. John closed his discussion with mentioning that the accounting department is getting ready for the 2017 accounting audit. Chairman Elliott requested for, after the audit, a comparison of what numbers are seen on the report, the audit reports and what the variations are so the Commissioners will understand the variances.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S UPDATE
Mr. Junkin updated the Committee on Rafetellis and that they are getting ready to move on with them and setting up the fixed portion of the O & M costs to determine how that is going to affect the overall revenues. He also mentioned that John is moving ahead with his group to develop the monthly financial reporting mechanism that is going to incorporate these reports from OpenGov and other sources to give the Commission and managers a more insightful look at what is going on financially. He also discussed asset management, maintaining them and data mining that information to keep up with it. In advance of that, before getting big databases built up, there are financial markers and Key Performance Indicators that can be identified and for the time being manually tracked until we have the tools to make that more efficient. The key is to track things which can help to reduce costs, keep up with optimal performance for providing services at the least costs. To that end, he noted he had asked staff to by the end of the month come up with at least 10 of their own measureables that help track financials and quality of work issues that need to be managed and monitored and seek to improve on a continual basis. Mr. Junkin completed his update by noting that staff is continuing working on analysis with the engineers to determine what the costs are regarding the bond issue for the SPLOST Project completion and for the two older plants’ upgrades and rehab. Staff is working diligently to get the bond issue out and hopefully executed by the first of the year.
Meeting was adjourned at 3:06 p.m.