The City Council of the the City of Sidney will meet tonight in the City Council Chambers. There will be a full agenda to consider with requests for two resolutions to be passed and annual reports from the City's financial Auditor, Rauner and Associates, and the Sidney, Public Library annual report. The agenda is provided herein commencing with items 4 through 11 with background as provided by members of the city government for your benefit.
Presentation of the 2008-2009 audit and request for acceptance by Council.
Essentially, the City has more assets than liabilities. According to the report, the City's total assets increased by $3,066,177 in comparison with the prior year. Revenues for the electric and sewer departments saw increases, while the landfill and water departments saw declines due to a cooler summer, resulting in less lawn watering.
Liabilities associated with business-type activities increased by nearly 1.2 million dollars, due primarily to construction of the Waste Water Treatment Plant project activities.
There is a point of concern in that the audit identified what they considered significant deficiencies that were not considered material weaknesses, a more severe type of accounting control failure. According to the report, exhibit Z cites a lack of experience in City accounting staff to, "detect and correct a potential misstatement in the presentation of the financial statements or notes in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted n the United States of America."
The report recommends that the city hire accounting staff with sufficient experience and knowledge to assist the auditors with the preparation of the City's financial statements. The City responded (in the report) that at this time the City's management believes that the benefit of eliminating this significant deficiency does not outweigh the cost of hiring a duly qualified person to assist with the preparation of the financial statements. City Council Clerk Geri Anthony, added that the city is planning to have staff members involved in the general ledger process attend accounting classes at Western Nebraska Community College. According to Anthony, all four of the personnel will eventually be required to attend instructor-led classes, but the two most closely associated with the general ledger activities will attend sessions this fall when live classes are held here in Sidney. "Night classes are available then also and with such a small staff night classes works the best for us," she said.
Olsson Associates will detail progress for the Waste Water Treatment Facility and seek payment for executed services under resolution 20100201.
According to the resolution, IPT, who is the contractor for the project, is due $290,303.11 and the engineering firm Olsson Associates is due $12,737.42. The totals represent work done according to a schedule attached to the resolution for the period from 6 December, 2009 until 2 January, 2010.
Sidney Public schools is seeking a permanent permit to allow diagonal parking on the south side of Jackson street under resolution 20100202. In a letter dated, 27 January, 2010, Sidney Public Schools Superintendent John Hakonson requested that a temporary parking arrangement from July2008 be adopted on a permanent basis (Resolution 20080704) provided that 45 degree lines be placed on the south side of Jackson Street. Hakonson said in his letter to John Henke that the school system requested the temporary situation be extended, noting that, "it has been ideal for high school employees and we are not aware of problems associated with this arrangement."
The Sidney Public Library report as provided by Library Director Doris Jensen.
The library was under budget by a little over 30 dollars and is on track with their budget and expenditures with 30.5% of the fiscal budget mirroring the actual expenditures. Other highlights include the excellent level of accreditation and grant monies obtained that led to more than 12,000 in funds received during the reporting period.
Julie Young made a request last Friday to be added to the agenda for 4 topic items, requesting a question and answer session for the following topics.
a. Open meetings.
b. Public Records.
c. Council Interference with City personnel.
d. Monies received by any business owned by a council member for services rendered to the City.
A lot has been passed back and forth regarding the Open Meetings Act. Julie has posted material in her blog questioning the timing of a closed session entered into last May (26th) as being necessary, and/or whether or not the reason (personnel issues) is sufficiently detailed enough to apprise the public of the intention for the closed session.
With respect to the use of personnel issues, there may be precedent in other Nebraska localities for such vagueness. According to the minutes from the December 14, 2009 City Council meeting from Sargent, Ne, a motion was placed and seconded to go into closed session, "for the protection of the public interest to discuss personnel issues." From the events which took place when council reconvened, the discussion was about personnel issues, resulting in a motion to raise the pay rate for a city employee. The motion subsequently passed.
The issue of public perception as to what goes on during a closed session led to a modification of the policy controlling public discussion of closed session topics in Bellevue, Nebraska. Last December, the City was forced to discuss its closed session activities in order to refute allegations of a Councilman who failed to attend a closed session to discuss legal issues affecting the number of Councilman due to a ballot initiative that passed.
Minutes from the March 26th, 2007 meeting showed how one councilman was able to allege an illegal closed session was held, seeking to void the meeting and it's fruits. In the (3/26/2007) minutes, the city countered the claims by the councilman and found that the meeting was properly entered into, properly timed, and since it was for the purpose of providing a briefing on potential legal issues associated with public ballot vote, there was nothing to void.
The issue of the Sidney Deadwood trail will also be reconsidered.
In a memo to City Council, Gary Person forwarded email correspondence between Public Works Director, John Henke and Deadwood Trail project coordinator Mark Jobman, of Sinclair-Hille regarding the current status of the DTP.
Person indicates in his memo that the city has two choices, Go forward as planned, with existing partnerships, or Rescind the agreement, thereby halting the project. Of the two choices, only the rescission of the agreement will require council action and would require the city to refund monies obtained from the state. The engineering firm costs would also not be reimbursable.
Person further notes that if the agreement were rescinded, it would be unlikely that the city would be able to obtain future grant monies for the trail project, "in the near future." He added, "If built at all, it would likely need to be built through alternate sources of revenue."
Update on LB967, sponsored by Ken Schilz on creating a fund to limit sales tax losses to 10% in any given year.
A separate posting for LB967 is on this blog for reference. In a memo to City Council for tonight's meeting, Gary Person outlines the general provisions hoped to be gained in a passed bill. Of significant importance, the legislation would create a fund to absorb the shock of significant losses by localities when large refund requests would exceed the sales tax expected by a locality by more than 10% in a given year. Under the proposed legislation, the locality would be able to "borrow" from the fund when refund requests exceed 10% and pay back those funds during years when the refunds did not exceed the threshold limit. Person said in his memo that in recent years, "We have exceeded the 10 percent, but many other years, we were substantially below the 10 percent." Person also indicated that last year the loss was $650,000 and this year thus far we have seen requests of $488,000.
Publishers Note: According to a table supplied with the memo, The last 8 years have seen refunds to the state increase from $142,792.69 to 650,822.67 for last year. This year's number is already nearly $500,000 and may eclipse last year's record amount. a couple questions have not been asked, including:
1. If businesses keep taking advantage of the laws which necessitate future losses to the city coffers, when would the city have the ability to "repay" monies borrowed from LB967's fund? (based on the last several years of increasing losses)
2. What economic growth that can be tied to jobs or increases in our demand economy are under consideration that would increase sales tax receipts, thereby reducing the percentage these refunds would occupy out of the total sales tax receipts?
Payment of claims from various businesses will be requested
Finally, the City Manager's report with comments from City Council and other actions concerning city departments, ordinances and state statutes.
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