HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN 02.23.2010 CC-WMinutes of the Meeting of the Governing Body
of the City of Georgetown,
Tuesday,i 2010
The City Council of the City of Georgetown, Texas, met in Regular Session on the above date with Mayor
George Garver presiding.
Council Present: Council Absent:
Keith Brainard, Gabe Sansing, Dale Ross, Ben All Council Present.
Oliver, Pat Berryman, Bill Sattler, Patty Eason
Staff Present:
Paul E. Brandenburg, City Manager; Mark Sokolow, City Attorney; Jessica Hamilton, City Secretary;
Micki Rundell, Chief Financial Officer; Jim Briggs, Assistant City Manager for Utility Operations; Chris
Foster, Chief Financial Analyst; Leticia Zavala, Project Manager; Laurie Brewer, Assistant Director of
Finance; Mike Peters, IT Director
Minutes
A Workshop discussion of the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for Fiscal Year Ended September 30,
2009 -- Micki Rundell, Chief Financial Officer; Laurie Brewer, Assistant Director of Finance and Lorie Lankford,
Accounting Manager
With a Powerpoint presentation, Rundell gave Council a brief overview of the audit that occurs each year. She
said the presentation will cover the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR), the highlight of operations
and financial reports. She spoke about financial reporting and said it is required by state law, City Charter and
bond covenants. She said the City Council hires the City Auditors and those auditors work for the Council. She
said the purpose of the financial reporting is to present fairly the financial results of the City's operations. She
said it is used by governmental accounting professionals, bond rating analysis and noted it is used to determine
the City's credit worthiness. She explained GAAP and GASB. She said GAAP is Generally Accepted
Accounting Principles, which are the rules by which all financial reports are prepared. She said GASB is the
Governmental Accounting Standards Boards and noted that is the governing body that has the oversight for
accounting standards for governmental entities.
Brewer said the CAFR will include a transmittal letter, an auditor's report, a high level management discussion
and analysis, government -wide financial statements, fund financial statements, supplemental schedules and
statistical section, which provides a ten year historical trend of statistics. She said the government -wide
statements are separated into two functions: governmental activities and business -type activities. She
explained what each of those activities entail. She said, in the government wide statements, there are two
statements including statement of net assets and statement of activities. She said the statement of activities will
be similar to an income statement in corporate accounting. She said the City has a total of $401 M in net assets.
She said $326M are the value of investment in capital assets, $2.5M reserved for General Debt service, $24.3M
reserved for capital projects and $48.1 M unrestricted funds, which also include contingency funds. She
explained what the $48.1M includes. She said, on the statement of activity, the City has a total of $119.1M of
program expenses, which includes depreciation but does not include capital purchases. She said the City has
$94.3M as charges for services, $1.3M for operating grants and $19M includes developer donated infrastructure
and the capital grants for Williams Drive widening. She said there was an $8.6M increase in the change of net
assets for government activities which includes $1.6M in capital contributions. She said there are $24.6M worth
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of business type activities. She explained to Council the "modified approach", which is a way of recording
depreciation. She said, under the modified approach, the funds are reported in the CAFR on the amount needed
and funded to maintain the adopted rate.
Lankford spoke about fund statements and said they are a more traditional approach to governmental
accounting. She said the City has several types of businesses that the City accounts for in funds. She added
they are distinct, separate accounting for specific purposes. She said the citizens own each of the funds and
the City Council sits as the elected board of directors for each company or fund. She noted governmental funds
are the traditional municipal services such as fire, police, library, streets, planning and development, parks and
recreation, municipal court, environmental services, tourism money and other similar funds. She gave an
overview of major governmental funds including the general fund, Georgetown Transportation Enhancement
Corporation (GTEC), general capital projects and general debt services. She spoke about proprietary funds,
which are enterprise funds which provide revenues to fund the cost of operations. She noted they are treated
more like a business and include water, electric airport, etc. She said there are also internal service funds which
could be considered overhead funds. She said the City's electric fund increased its net assets to $55.1 M. She
said part of the increase was due to capital contributions and infrastructure expansion. She also spoke about
the increase in net assets of the water services fund.
Rundell spoke about the City's compliance with the Fiscal and Budgetary Policy. She spoke about what is
required of the City so that it can be compliant with the policy. She spoke about the audit reports and said the
auditing standards changed in 2008. She reviewed those changes. She said the City received a clean opinion
from the auditors that the CAFR fairly represents the City's financial position. She spoke about the report on
internal controls. She summarized the management and risk assessment letters given to Council from the
auditors. She spoke briefly about the Information Technology (IT) Master Plan, the vehicle service center and
other items contained in the auditing report.
Brewer spoke about the City's risk assessment. She said, after the auditing standards changed, the auditors
now have a much higher level of review work when it comes to auditing. She noted a letter was given to Council
that addresses the specific questions and concerns that were brought about by staff and Council. She said the
auditors did a more detailed review of the internal financial controls to make sure there aren't more instances of
fraud. She spoke about the areas of concern brought forth to the auditors and listed the various areas of the
City that the auditors explored.
Brainard commended Rundell and staff for their work in preparing the CAFR. He said he is thankful that the
General Government and Finance Committee had the opportunity to discuss these items with the auditors.
Brainard asked and Rundell said this is the first time the City had to recognize its health care services for
retirees in the report. She explained how that new figure affects the City and its budget. Brewer said the
methodology that the actuary used is located on pages 62 and 63 of the report. Ross said the CPA did a great
job answering questions and the CAFR is a great document. Eason said she has nothing to add and noted it is
an excellent report and was well presented at the GGAF meeting. Sattler asked and Rundell explained how
depreciation is treated in the CAFR. Rundell congratulated and commended the staff for their work on the CAFR
document.
B Overview of the
City's
Information Technology
(IT) Master Plan-- Leticia Zavala, Project Manager; Mike Peters,
IT
Director
and
Micki
Rundell,
Chief
Officer
Financial
With a Powerpoint Presentation, Rundell spoke about the development of the IT Master Plan. She said the City
hired Westin Engineering to assist staff in the creation of the master plan. She said the plan is to provide staff
with direction on how the City should utilize, maintain and spend its money on its Information Technology.
Speaker, Michael Mousavi of Westin Engineering, provided a brief background of the IT Master Plan. He
explained the concept of a "master plan" and said that it is a strategic document that describes how information
technology should be used within an organization. He said the Master Plan is a systematic approach and he
listed each phase of the project management. He said work on the Master Plan began in September of 2009.
He said they used the City's 2030 Comprehensive Plan as a guide to development the IT Master Plan and
added, during the planning workshop, the City defined the current vision and goals for the Information
Technology department. He described that vision. He spoke about the many ways the City has decided to
reach their goals and visions. He showed Council a graph demonstrating the plan's vision of the future. He
explained the process demonstrated in that graph including information access, application and data
integrations and e-business integration. He spoke about linking the City's strategic themes with its desired
results. He spoke about their approach and said they looked at the best practices of other municipalities. He
spoke about the assessment findings and notable IT related accomplishments within many departments. He
described the many current accomplishments within the IT department. He said they identified many notable
opportunities, including the fact that the City's IT Department did not include many services required to provide
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cross -functional business solutions to the City and its staff. He said City departments were implementing
systems independently, which resulted in silos of processes, technology and data. He said the users of most
City applications cannot access data or services across different divisions. He said other opportunities included
the fact that a number of departments have similar business needs, which can be addresses by enterprise
solutions. He noted, at this point, the City does not have the technology needed to treat its data as an
enterprise asset. He added the City's technology disaster recovery procedures are not completed at this time.
He showed Council a graph demonstrating types of services that should be typically provided by IT
Departments. He then showed Council the actual activities that are being performed. He reviewed the IT Master
Plan recommendations, including organization and people projects, technology projects and applications
projects. He listed examples of those types of projects. He said the the plan would be to automate business
processes across divisions.
Brainard said the progress the IT department is making is remarkable. Sattler asked and Rundell spoke about
the estimated costs for these projects. Rundell said the dollars associated with each project can be found on
pages 83-85 of the Master Plan given to Council. Berryman asked and Peters said the City is in the middle of a
Lotus Notes upgrade. Peters said the City said they have a project open to review Lotus Notes and build a
business case to replace it with a better program. There was much discussion.
C Update report on the City's Sales Tax revenue profile including historical information as well as sales tax
revenue projections -- Chris Foster, Chief Financial Analyst and Micki Rundell, Chief Financial Officer
This item was pulled by staff.
D Presentation, discussion, and possible direction to staff related to the development of a Thermal Storage
Distribution Energy Resource -- Jim Briggs, Assistant City Manager for Utility Operations
Mayor reviewed the item.
Recessed to Executive Session under Sections 551.071, 551.071, 551.086, 55.1087 and 551.074 -- 5:17 p.m.
Returned to Open Session and Adjourned -- 6:24 p.m.
Adjournment
The meeting was adjourned at 06:24 PM.
Attest.-
Mayor
ttest:
Mayor Georg6Garver Ci
Ly/ Secretary ld6syskb Hamilton
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