Board Meeting
January 22, 2024
Transcript
Describer:
Board Meeting Agenda
Monday, January 22nd, 2024, at 6:00 p.m.
7404 Yorkshire Drive, Castle Pines, CO 80108
I. Welcome. Call meeting to order. Pledge of Allegiance.
II. Roll call. Determination of quorum. Disclosure of potential conflicts.
III. Consider approving the January 22nd, 2024 board meeting agenda.
IV. Consider approving November 27, 2023, board meeting minutes.
V. Consider approving December 12, 2023, special board meeting minutes.
VI. Consider approving January 17, 2024, board study session minutes.
VII. Public comment period. (Three-minute maximum per person).
VIII. Finance Director's report
A. Ratify claims for payment including check numbers 28279 - 28363 and electronic payments issued from November 23, 2023 through January 17, 2024.
General Fund/Open Space for November 2023 $2,856.84, for December 2023 $52,182.34, For January 2024 $286.50, Total General Fund/Open Space $55,325.68
Enterprise Funds for November 2023 $697,013.41, for December 2023 $667,790.34, For January 2024 $866,440.54, Total Enterprise Funds $2,231,244.29
Electronic Payments (all funds) for November 2023 $38,216.60, for December 2023 $60,262.63, For January 2024 $26,614.97, Total Electronic Payments $125,094.20
Total Expenditures for November 2023 $738,086.85, for December 2023 $780,235.31, For January 2024 $893,342.01, Total Expenditures for the Period $2,411,664.17
B. Public hearing/Approval of 2022 budget amendment.
C. Acceptance of the 2022 Audit.
D. Consider approval of 2023 engagement letter from Rubin Brown.
E. Consider charging customers credit card fees associated with bill payments.
IX. Legal Counsel's report
A. Consider First amendment to intergovernmental agreement between the City of Castle Pines and Castle Pines North Metropolitan District Regarding Operation, Maintenance and Transfer of Recreation Properties.
X. District Manager’s report
A. Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for Castle Pines Parkway Rehabilitation Phase 1 project.
B. Consider Approval of “Slow the Flow” and “Lawn Replacement Program” agreement, with Resource Central for 2024.
C. Update regarding sanitary sewer spill violation.
D. District manager out of office February 7th- 16th.
XI. Director’s Matters
XII. Adjourn
Board President Jason Blankaert:
All right. Good evening and welcome to the Castle Pines North Metropolitan District board meeting for Monday, January 22nd. It's, just after 6 p.m., and I'd like to call the meeting to order and start with the Pledge of Allegiance.
All Speak:
I Pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Jason:
All right. Thank you. let's go ahead and proceed with roll call. We'll start at the ends here.
Board Member James Mulvey:
Here. Jim Mulvey
Board Member Tera Radloff:
and Tera present. No conflicts,
James:
Jim. No conflicts. Thank you.
Jason:
Leah is not here. And Jana.
Board Member Jana Krell:
Present. No conflicts.
Jason
And I am Jason. Blankaert and I present no conflicts. All right, we've got, a couple of agendas. board meeting, minutes to, approve.
Well, we can start with number three, or we can bundle them all together if anybody has any, any, issues with any of them.
Tera:
I make a motion to approve the January 22nd, 2024. nope. That's our agenda. I...
Jason off-mic:
We should start by approving the agenda.
Tera:
Okay. I make a motion that we approve the agenda as presented.
Board Voting All Speak:
I'll second it. Go for a vote here, Jim. Approve. Tera, I and Jana, I and I approve as well. So it's unanimous. All right, now we'll move on to the board meeting. Minutes. Make a motion to approve the November 11th, 2023 board meeting. Minutes as presented the December 12th, 2023 Special Board meeting minutes as presented, and the January 17th, 2024 Board Study session minutes as presented.
I'll second. Okay, having a second, we can go to vote. Jim. I. Tera I Jana I and I approve as well.
Jason:
So that will take us to. agenda item number seven, public comment period. Do we have anybody signed up for public comment tonight?
All right. Welcome. Approach the podium. And then if you'll give us your name and address, please.
Steve Dawes, Castle Pines Resident:
Steve Dawes 5703 Jasper Point Circle and, Castle Pines. Thank you for this. I just have a couple of questions. I read in the materials that were online, the 2022 audit report. And, it noted some deficiencies in internal controls, etc., and internal billing errors, accounting and entries. And I guess my first question is, what is this about?
And my second question is how did it come about? And my third question is what do we do in the future about it?
Jason:
Those are all great questions. And hopefully tonight when we get to that part of the presentation, we'll get the answers to those.
Steve:
Well, then you'll allow me to come back and be able to answer more questions.
Then right.
Jason:
I don't yeah. No, I don't think so. But, I'm sure all of your questions will be answered in this, in that portion of the, meeting. Okay.
Tera:
so do you have additional I mean, this is our public comment, period. So if you have questions, we don't have another public comment, period. So if you have a bunch of questions, we have somebody here who's representing our audit firm.
So he could if you want to get them on record then he can hopefully address them.
Steve:
yeah I got that. So okay, I had another question. And that has to do with the, resource center loan replacement program participant contract that's on the agenda for review today. I was most interested in the part representing the participant contract and the materials that are proposed to be allowed to be installed when lawns are replaced and it says, for example, that, the participant agrees not to install artificial synthetic turf, impermeable concrete, water features, invasive species or new turf.
is that meant to be an totally inclusive list, or is there going to be something else? For example, is mulch allowed? Are weed barriers allowed, or is that something that has to be worked on on each plan?
Jason:
Those are good questions. I'm sure Nathan will be able to address those. we'll make notes of those and, and addresses when we get to the district manager's, report.
James
Excuse me. Could you just, say the last one I got not to install concrete and artificial turf? What was the third thing?
Steve:
Yeah, and it's on page 15 of 18 in that section of the packet. That has to do with the program. And it's the .... and participant contract that says artificial or synthetic turf and permeable concrete and patios or similar material water features, invasive species or new turf.
And there are certainly lots of other landscaping materials that could be installed. So I just want to see if we had any standards on that. Okay. Appreciate it. My third question has to do with the, Nathan's report and the potential fine by the state for that spill. I guess my question is, why should we get fined at all?
Jason:
Of those are all great questions.
Steve:
which will be answered undoubtedly sometime in the future, Okay.
Jason:
however, we can't comment on things that we haven't talked about. So. Yeah, but thank you.
okay. Is anybody online signed up for comments? ......
Okay. Welcome. Leah just joined us. All right. Very good. So we'll go ahead and close out, item number seven and move on to the finance director's report. Who do we have online for that tonight? Phyllis with us. Good evening. Phyllis.
Phyllis Brown, Community Resource Services of Colorado (CRS) muffled:
Yes, I'm here. Let me get Where are you guys Are at.
Oh, Page..., there we go. Got it.
we can go over the, claims first if you'd like.
Jason:
Yeah. Let's go ahead and ratify those claims.
Phyllis:
Okay, so we're ratifying text from the period November 23rd 2023 to January 17th, 2024. because we didn't have a meeting in December, we've got quite a few to ratify today. checks 28279 to 28263. That's a little wonky to three,
Jason:
yeah
Guys, can we fix her audio?
Phyllis:
Let's just go. Oh, can you not hear me?
Jason:
I'm sorry? Phyllis, just a second. We're having trouble understanding you.
Board Member Leah Enquist:
I can hear her really well on my end.
Jason:
Okay. We'll, try, first. First. We'll get through it. Thank you. All right, so do we have a motion, then to ratify claims for payments?
Tera:
So I make a motion to ratify the claims for payment and including check numbers 28279 through 28363. And electronic payments issued from November 23rd, 2023 through January 17th, 2024. And the amounts of total expenditures for November of 738,086.85. Total expenditures for December of $780,235.31. Total expenditures for January of 893,342.01, for a total of $2,411,664.17.
Board Voting All Speak:
I'll go ahead and second. Great. Having a second. Let's go to a vote, Jim I Tera, I Jana, I Leah. I. And I vote I as well. So that will pass unanimously unanimously. And we'll move on to the. Now Phyllis, the public hearing and approval of the 2022 budget amendment.
Phyllis:
All right. you have to open the hearing, or you want me to explain it first.
Can you hear me or. No.
Jason:
We'll get I'll go ahead and open up public, public hearing for the, approval of the 2022 budget amendment. Thank you.
Phyllis:
Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Just kind of muffled a little bit.
Phyllis:
Well, you know, I'm going to take my, hands off and see if it works better for.
Let's try that. All right. Can you hear me any better? Much better. Oh. That's weird. Usually they could hear. People can hear me with that. So sorry about that. The budget amendment for 2022, we're amending two funds the general fund and the certificate. Certificates of participation, 2015 fund. Page 49 of your packet shows what was adopted and what we're amending.
for there were certain categories that went over. So we're amending from $4,909,839 for the general fund to $13,041,609 and for the COPS fund, we're amending it to from 0 to $19,135,400. So I can explain that we can go down to the general fund. You can see some of our categories ended up changing from how the budget was originally presented.
for a couple reasons. One was the anticipated inclusion. was going to change the categories in 22 and that did not happen. the other thing that happened is there were sales of water rights that, weren't budgeted for. And so that's showing up in your other financing sources uses. So it brought in proceeds, but there's a corresponding transfer out to pay off the COPS funds.
And so that's an expenditure of $9 million. That wasn't, in the budget. So the net to the general fund was significant. But that dollar amount was at significant, which puts us over budget. Because if you look at total expenditures, we were under budget. We budgeted 4.9 million and we were at 3.2 million. Does that makes sense?
Jason:
Yeah, I think we're tracking
Phyllis:
okay. Yeah. So it was really that the down on the bottom there where we're saying, hey, the other financing sources uses the ins and outs. Once we put that in, we have to include the 9.8 million as an expenditure and amend the budget for that. So we ended up for, the budget was we were anticipating a -1.2, and we ended up with a $96,000 positive change in fund balance.
Okay. And then the next page is, the COPS. Once the water rights were sold, they we paid off all those, participation notes. And so, again, that's an expenditure. We have some the money coming in that we transferred from the water fund and the general fund for, the sale of the water rights and then paid all those off.
So because we had an expenditure, we have to amend for that as well. And that at the end of the year is a zero balance.
Jason:
Okay. Thank you. Do we have questions on this.
Okay Phyllis, it's a lot to process, but I think it makes sense.
Phyllis:
I hope well on that. the audit has all this in in the categories, but when you paid off your debt, you got lots of money in. And you guys remember all this and paid it out. So now we have an expenditure over here taking the money out of here and putting it over here than paying it out.
So we ended up amending both of those funds basically for that transaction, because of the way you have to show your expenditures.
Jason:
Okay. We'll open this up now to, public comment period.
Do we have any comments regarding this, budget amendment? Seeing none, we'll go ahead and close down the public comment period. Thank you. I, we can do it. Do we vote on this one now? Okay, okay.
Board Voting All Speak:
I'll make a motion then to approve the recommended budget amendment. I'll second. All right. Having it seconded. We'll move to a vote. Jim.
I Tera, I Jana, I Leah. I. That's an I for me as well. So we'll go ahead and move on then to the acceptance of the 2022 audit. So I'll turn this back over to you Phyllis.
Phyllis:
Okay. I think this is where, Reuben Brown gets to step in and present the audit for us some there. ....
Russell White from CPA Firm Rubin Brown:
Hey, Phyllis, it's Russ. How you doing? Hi, Russ. Good evening everyone. I'm Russell White with the CPA firm Reuben Brown. And, thanks for the opportunity to present, tonight. I'm pleased to stand here and say that, the district, earned a unmodified opinion this year, which is a clean opinion. That's the highest you can get from an audit to clean opinion.
Our four page, opinion starts on page one, and it talks about audit responsibilities, management's responsibilities and requires supplemental information and, the comparative information. moving on to page five. In the audit report, I just want to go over some high level topics here. High level items here, $188 million in total assets and $8 million of liabilities, which basically gives the district $180 million, net position or equity in the for profit world.
So bottom line here is you have a very healthy balance sheet. It's been healthier in the last two years and it has from five years ago in out of this, $180 million net position or equity unrestricted fund balance is $60 million, which is really good. Another item of note up here on top is cash and cash equivalents.
In 2021, it was $53 million. And at the end of 2022, it's $60 million. And that's a $7 million increase. So you probably asking yourself why the increase? Well as Phyllis had said there was a water rights sale of $18 million to pay off their certificates of participation. And out of that pay off, there's a $10 million gain on that that the district recognized.
Moving over to page six of our financial statements in the audit report, it's a statement of activities. I like to call that the income statement in the for profit world. the big item of note here is the change in net position, or what I call net income of $23 million compared to about ten last year. Out of that $23 million, again, $10 million was the gain on the water rights that was sold in 2022.
So if you want to back out that extraordinary item of water rights, we had a $13 million, increase compared to a $10 million increase last year. So that's kind of the explanation of that extraordinary item of selling the water rights. Moving on to, page seven of, the balance sheet of the government funds. I just want you to take a look at the 2015 certificate of, of, the COPS.
And that's all blank. It's all zeroed out because it got paid off. And when you look over on page nine, as Phyllis presented, that you see where the, the debt service was paid off on those COPS. So you see where the, $18 million, almost $19 million of, that was paid off with interest. And then you see the transfer in and transfer out.
Moving on to page 11, the statement in that position for the enterprise funds, that's going to be the water, wastewater and, the storm drainage. revenue compared to cash compared to last year, $52 million versus 45. Again, that's a $7 million increase from the prior year. And then in the net position, $111 million versus $104 million down on the bottom of page 11.
Again, that's a $7 million increase. And again, that, resulted in that gain on the water rights. Most of that did. So those are things that were different from last year. moving on to page 13, statement of revenue, expenses and changes in their position on the enterprise Fund. what I want to, note here on page 13, very top operating income, $5.9 million versus $5 million in 2021.
So overall operations net income increased by $900,000. That's good. And then you can see the gain on sale, the water rights, for the water fund was, $4.9 million versus none of the previous year. So that's that allocation that we had to break out between the general fund and the water fund based on how the debt was funded on the purchase of those water rights back, ten and 15 years ago.
moving on to page 14, my favorite, financial statement statement, a cash position or statement of cash flows for the enterprise fund. Everybody wants to know where the cash is at, because cash is king in this world. When you look at the statement of cash flows in the middle of the page, net increase in cash, you can see it by, water, wastewater, storm and overall 2022 is $6.2 million increase in cash versus $708,000 in 2021.
So again, a lot of that had to do with, the sale of the water rights. Moving on to the financials, statement footnotes, there's a couple I want to bring to your attention while I'm perusing my paper here on, page 28, which is footnote number three, capital assets. you can see where we have the water and water storage rights.
The, the sale of those. You can see the cost basis being deleted out of there of about $4 million. page 29 on the on the business type funds, you can see the, the water rights of about $3.9 million. that cost basis of those water rights being deleted and, eliminated from, the asset, presentation.
Then on page 30, footnote four, long term debt. If you take a look at the government fund activities, you can see the 2015, CLP refunding of the bond. You can see the bond payments of $19 million, and it zeros the, the the bond debt out. at the end of the year.
moving on. Kind of the last item of note here. I know we talked about the of the amended budget. We've got that baked into the the final out of presentation here. And that's on page 44. The reason you amended a budget, I call it late in the game, is to make sure that we don't get a, a friendly notice from the State of Colorado auditor's office.
And you can do that up to the day that you issue the report. So, as you can see, total expenditures of of, the final budget was $3.1 million in budget in the, it was the final budget, you see, the original budget. And then we had a favorable variance of $690,000. So, this is going to prevent the state of Colorado from basically giving us a, what they call a paper finding.
There's there's no penalty on that, but they don't like to see that. That concludes the presentation of the financial statement Audit report. Kind of bottom line on that is clean opinion. water rights, sales increase in cash. And overall, the, the district's in a very healthy position. Moving on to the next, communication, which I'm required, to talk about is the Auditor communication letter.
It's a little bit of skinnier document. And, items I want to bring to your attention on this that are noteworthy, is we did have we did have a couple of findings. And, in in the audit world, we call those, deficiencies and we classify those as material, significant or other audit findings. on these, we consider the material and, the manual billing entries were incorrectly entered in the system, which which, result in an overstatement of revenue and expenses, about $519,000.
There were some accounting entries related to transfers between funds that were incorrectly entered in the county system, which result in the fund balance not rolling forward properly by $616,000, and then the accounting entries related to the sale of the water, were not properly allocated between the general fund in the water fund. So likely the result of that delay in the 2021 audit in the change in I call it management companies and the quick turnaround of the 2022 audit basically, in my opinion, contributed to some of these, some of these issues right here.
we've talked to Phyllis and we've talked to Nathan about this, and basically they've got an eye going forward to basically put another control into place so that these things don't happen in the future. But some of these are like one off items that have never happened in this district before or other districts. and then with the journal entries, we have those in, presented in the back also.
And, you know, when we presented the, the 21 audit report, we presented that in July, and then we started the 2022 audit three weeks later. And, I know Phyllis's team was working real hard to get us the information, and then we had to squeeze that in from a scheduling standpoint. So, you know, we're we're at a point right now that we're caught up on the audits for 21 and 22.
We have the audit scheduled for the end of, April and the beginning of May for, the 23 audit. And that'll put, the district back on course for, call regular routine. audits. And we plan to, issue before July 31st and basically have a, a presentation that last week in June or sometime in the middle part of of July.
So, overall, from a journal entry standpoint, we had, five last year journal entries. We had four this year. So anything five or under is considered exceptional. And, out of those four, you know, three of them where I recall, one offs that, you know, when you don't have a consistent team here and you've got a new, a new management group that's getting up to speed, those things happen.
And on these three that I talked about that were internal control deficiencies, you know, that's just trying to get caught back up on the normal routine of the day to day operations. And basically we've got our 8 to 5 job managing the district. And then we've got Phyllis behind the scenes, you know, working from five to midnight to to work with us on the audit.
So she's working like almost 24/7 to get caught up and we're right there and with getting this amendment in place, we're there and we'll be squared away with the state of, of Colorado from the audit standpoint once it gets filed this week. So that concludes my presentation. I hope that answers your question on those three. On those three issues,
Steve off-mic:
what does it mean?
It's just a bookkeeping issue or something else?
Russ:
it's a, it's a process issue. It's a bookkeeping issue. But you know, standard audit procedures caught that and we identified that.
Steve off-mic:
So it's more of a question of where are these entries made. Not some loss of revenue?
Russ:
There was not loss of revenue. So when we do comparisons we confirm revenue. I mean it popped real quick.
So basically we talked to Phyllis and Nathan about it. So but as auditors we got to write that down. That's our job. So it may seem on a from a rent standpoint, more punitive than what actually is.
Jason:
Thank you for your presentation. Any questions. yeah. We'll open this up to questions.
James:
So yeah. I kind of, you know, would be looking for I mean, we're talking about, you know, a couple significant numbers here in.
Manual internal billing entries incorrectly entered into system, not being an accountant. I wonder if you could kind of elaborate on what that means.
Russ:
So one of the things we do from an audit testing standpoint is that we'll take a look at the water usage for the year and have a blended rate. And then when we compare that to to actual that there's a difference there.
And then we start asking questions. So that was basically a calculation error. That was, that was that was made that got corrected. So basically if we're billing out what, what average 10,000 gallons from a customer at x rate, we do a predictive, analytic to identify what we think the water usage should be. And then we look at the actual and when the actual, you know, more or less in its material and this was material, we asked questions and basically look at the billings per month.
Do you see what the actual problem was? So it was a miscalculation or a key data input error into the billing system.
Phyllis:
And I can elaborate if you'd like. It was that was during the interim period after pinnacle left and before we took over. So there weren't probably the procedures in place. There was no one to be able to review that information.
So that kind of rolled forward through the end of the year. It was an internal transfer amount. So. So it didn't affect cash. It just affected our revenue line item in one fund. And expense item in another fund. And so reversing that back out just affected the net change in those funds. But there was no cash issue on that.
And so now we're we're we're reporting those and we're reviewing those monthly as they go in.
James:
Okay. I mean, the only thing I would kind of pick out here is manual internal billing entries. and what you indicated that it was essentially a miscalculation and not a in, you know, I'm just I'm going to pick out your verbiage a little bit.
Nathan:
Okay. All right. So we had so the other issue we had there was with one customer account, we entered their billing usage. I think it was something we had. It showed up in like one account in one month that it was like a 170 million gallons of usage. We caught it immediately on our billing side. So when Susan was processing that, she, you know, obviously saw that we were getting ready to send out a $35,000 water bill or whatever it was.
so that was for the month of June, billing cycle, Susan corrected. It, sent the bill out. Everything was fine, but that never got communicated or never got the the change in usage didn't for June, didn't get communicated back to the financial team to to correct that. And so when we were going through the audit, we had this, June of 2022, we had this huge, huge usage spike that did not have a commensurate an increase in revenue.
so once we finally started, once we finally got into it and started going through it, we found out that we we had caught the issue on the billing side, but that we never adjusted the usage report from the month or month before to reflect that. And stumbled.
Phyllis:
And again, that was in the interim period where, pinnacle wasn't there.
And I think CRS wasn't there. Wasn't that right, Nathan? It was kind of right in that like, is it. Yeah. And it was oh, instead of typing in 100, 101, they typed in 101 literally. Okay. So they, they missed the one at the end on one.
James:
And any one of the three, you can pick this one up. And only because we had public comment and I kind of wrote down your questions.
But please tell me, you know, that we have a methodology for, you know, how this doesn't happen again.
Phyllis:
But well, we do have review. We you know, we have no people in place, for to be able to prepare and someone else to be able review. and now that we're getting caught up, because we've been playing catch up for so long, we haven't been able to get to preparing financials on a monthly basis and reviewing we do review cash on a monthly basis.
So it's really the amounts that are getting allocated in the general ledger. So because of all the changes that happened, the COPS paid off the the water rights sales. And then in 23, we now have funds that are changing because we have the, parks going to the to the parks and rec side. There's just a lot you guys have a lot of complex issues going on.
and so we're keeping our day to day accounting up. So it's just making sure we, identify those beefier issues and get those accounted for and figured out before we're in the middle of the audit. But because we were so far behind, we were figuring out at the same time we were doing the audit. But we'll have that all figured out before it goes to the audit for 2023.
James:
Are there any other questions?
Okay. Hearing none. do I hear a motion to approve? I lost my sheet here. Hold on.
approve the 2022 budget amendment. Is that the correct? note?
Legal Counsel Kim Seter, Esq.:
You're just accepting the audit presentation, and you don't. You shouldn't really approve it because he's independent. He did it. He did it. Right. Okay, you're accepting it.
Jason:
All right. we don't have to vote on acceptance, right? You should. Okay So we'll vote, then. On accepting the 2022 audit as presented, I will second, having a second.
Board Voting All Speak:
We'll go to a vote Jim I Tera, I Jana. I. Yeah. I. And it's an I for me as well. So that, passes unanimously. Now, the next agenda. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is the, considering the approval of the, engagement letter for 2023 for Rubin Brown.
Is that something that was directed by Phyllis or. and
Phyllis:
that's in front page 52 of your packet that this is just it the board can decide that they want to engage the same accounting firm or they want to and just, you know, see if they want to get another accounting firm. So Rubin Brown is saying, hey, we are willing and able to do your audit for 2023.
And so they've given us their, engagement letter for the board's consideration for approval to do the 23 audit. Okay. Do we have any questions about this?
Tera:
No, I'm I'm going to recommend that we continue with Rubin Brown just because we were so far behind. And we are on schedule. And, they they did a good job on the 22, 2022 and 2021 audits.
so I don't I don't have any questions.
Jana:
I support that also, Tera, but I do have a question is and looking through them, I couldn't find the difference between the letter that started on page 52 and the letter that started on 66,
Phyllis:
I think there in I think it's in there twice.
Jana:
Bu I thought the dates matched.
Phyllis:
I think it's in there twice.
Jana:
Oh, that helps. Thank you.
Phyllis:
I saw that, yeah.
Board Voting All Speak:
Okay. Any other opinions or concerns? None. Then, I'll make a motion to, to consider the, I'll make a motion to approve the engagement letter for 2023 from Rubin Brown. Day or second. I'll second. Great. Having a second. Let's go to vote. Jim I, Tera, I, Jana I and Leah I that's an I for me as well.
Jason:
So we'll unanimously passed that engagement letter approval. And then we'll move on to the subject of, charging customer credit card fees associated with their bill payments.
James:
Can we go going to have a discussion or anything? Yeah. Okay.
Jason:
So so, Nathan, what do we know about this? yeah. So we spend a thought. I wish I brought my copy of the budget roughly, like $40,000 a year and customer credit card fees.
something that we have talked about, bringing to the board, for a decision on whether or not to start passing those, passing through those credit card fees to customers. it's been on the agenda a couple times, so we finally got it landed, landed here so you guys can talk about it. It's really, it's really it.
I don't have a lot to a lot of color to add
Jana:
a roughly 40,000.
Phyllis:
That's. Yeah, that's that's right.
Leah:
I would support something like this. I feel like it's in line with kind of practices across the board, with other industries, consumers, etc..
James:
Okay. I think I support this as well, but I just wanted to have a quick discussion on, what percentage of people are impacted by these fees.
Right. And they're basically we're paying for what percentage of the fees of people that for their water bills? I mean, some people are paying by, you know, each check or regular checks and some people are paying by credit cards.
Nathan:
That is something I don't know. Phyllis, do we have, the ability to get a breakdown by payment type for bills?
Phyllis:
I think we do. We probably could get that from Susan or Allison.
James:
I was really just looking for a rough idea, percentage wise. 25. 50, 75. Yeah, not an exact accounting of it, but just a rough number. And the only reason I'm really asking is, is if, you know, we approve this, which, you know, I kind of agree with, I just wanted to have it, you know, notification to people that, you know, when that would occur and how many people potentially we would be impacting, you know, just so we let them know, that's all.
Nathan:
Yeah. I think that's a fair point. I can I can certainly ask Susan to dig through. I'm sure that, she a rough number. She can come up with relatively quickly. I think something that would be prudent is to not just drop it in effect, you know, maybe if we'd give it, like a 60 day lead time, that lets me get two billing inserts, in place that just lets people know, you know, beginning on whatever it is.
May 1st, April 1st, 2023, we'll start collecting them. but I can get that, payment type breakdown.
Jason:
So I noticed with, especially with the state of Colorado, if you play by a credit card, you're paying the fees. But if you're paying by electronic check, you don't pay a fee. Correct. Is that an option with us or.
Nathan:
Yeah. So we you know, we take payment. People can mail us mail checks in. honestly, the best way to do it is just an EFT automatic withdrawal. And then they can also do credit cards. I actually don't know if we even do cash. I can't remember the last time anybody tried. but. Yeah. So there's we just it's just passing through that specific so there’s free ways for people to pay their bills?
Absolutely. Okay, great. Okay.
Phyllis:
So the insert would say, hey, if you don't want to incur a fee, you can have us automatically take the money out of your account. So here are some other options to avoid incurring a charge for the fee.
James:
That's kind of where my head was at is one people will examine their bills. They're going to see a difference.
They're going to want to know why they're getting charges, additional amount and then providing them the options. Again, communicating that is always looking for.
Nathan
Yeah. And so to to pay by credit card. We also don't allow or don't have it set up to do automated automatic payments using a credit card. So the only way you can get automatic withdrawal or automatic payment on your water bill is through, like the EFT.
and so everybody that does pay with their credit card, I think they have to go through our website specifically. So they have to come on to our website, go through a payment portal, and then they have to do that again every month. So there's it won't actually show up as an additional fee on anybody's bill. It would just show up when they go through the, through the payment process, you'd see the extra fee get added.
Leah:
this might be more, more detailed in the weeds, but, my understanding is different Credit cards charge different, like, processing fees. so would we just charge, like, a flat percentage? would that be, like, the highest, credit card fee, or would it be like a blended average? Or how do we determine the percentage to charge back?
Kim:
You're you're actually not you're actually not charging the fee. It's being charged by the company that's processing the credit cards. So the way every one of these dots works the same way, the customer will go on, click that they want and pay their bill and they'll be given options of the electronic check or, money transfer. And one will be credit card.
If they click on credit card, it will say there is a processing fee of 3%. Do you wish to continue? And that's it.
Leah:
Okay. Instead of us paying the processing company that fee, the customer's paying the processing company, whatever that fee is.
Kim:
Correct. And you you will never see it.
Leah:
Which, as I'm thinking aloud and you explained it, makes total sense.
And that was a silly question, but thank you for indulging me.
Jason:
Any other questions?
Jana:
No, but I have to comment. so at first I thought that the 60 days was, like a courteous way of doing it. But really, if somebody is going online and it's not automatic, then they're going to see it immediately. And I don't feel like we have to give them the grace period, because it's not an auto draft where they're surprised at an additional cost.
They're selecting it to begin with. So they're going to see, oh, well, let me go get my debit card instead of my credit card. So I don't yeah, I think it's a great idea. And I think it's an easy way and it's plus it's in line with other other municipalities, the government, you know, police things like that.
When we pay tolls, things like that. So I think it's a good way to give back to our, metro district.
Tera:
And I agree what you with what you said. I think it's in line with all other municipalities. If you want to pay something through the county, you pay your own processing fee. If you want to, you know, whatever.
However, if we are making a change in process, I believe it's just courteous to give give notice. We I don't I don't agree with just changing up the way we do things without letting anybody know. I just think it's it's as we are, you know, being transparent. I think that that goes far for transparency. So I'm looking at even from November through January, we paid 14, almost $15,000 in bank service charges.
And so what I understand is that that is strictly credit card processing fees. Okay.
James:
Yeah. any comment to follow up if you want to, like I said, talking to, you know, listen to Jana. Agree, that's kind of the way we're doing it, but I totally agree with, you know, Tera saying that we we need at least communicated to people.
And if you want to chop it from 60 to 30 days or something. But a lot of people will just continue along and they'll just notice it at the last minute. And I think it's beneficial that you don't get 100 phone calls in the first week. and, I totally agree with this fee pass along because they're probably.
And the reason why I asked my first question was some people who are actually physically mailing checks or doing an e-check, which I think it's like a $1 fee or something like that. so it's a little bit different that, it's more fair to the people that aren't impacted by these fees that still mail physical checks and things like that.
And they're getting, you know, essentially other people are paying nothing. And these, you know, and the people that are paying by checks are almost essentially subsidizing that other process. I, I think this is fair.
Jason:
Kim Is this something we you know, this is something we do is a directive to staff or is this something that we need to vote on?
Kim:
We had posted this as a fee that needed a public hearing. I'm not absolutely sure that's true, but in light of of your desire to always be, open and transparent, we kept that and moved the public hearing to tonight.
So you should go ahead and open it up for any public comment and then have a motion to approve. allowing the transaction company to charge the fee to the customer as opposed to the district.
Jason:
Thank you. Okay. Hearing that we will open this up now to public comment. If there's any public comments, please make yourself known.
Roberta Allen:
Well, that was really difficult. I'm Roberta Allen, 5703 Jasper Point Circle. I appreciate your opening it up for comment. I think that it would be a good idea to alert people that this is a change, and not, surprise them. And I would make it clear, because it's not clear to me. how do you, you know, your different choices of payment?
I didn't know you could pay any other way except by check. So that's good information for me to have. but make it clear the different, ways that someone can pay, to write a check each month is a pain in the butt. I didn't know there was another choice. I had been looking on the website and trying to figure it out, and so it's not clear to the consumer that there's other ways to do it.
But obviously some people do it because you have a lot in credit cards. But, I think people should be warned, in advance. I don't think 90 days is too much, in advance to do it in. So that would be my recommendation.
Jason:
Thank you.
Any comments online? Okay. Hearing no more comments, we'll go ahead and. Wait for, a motion. Oh, the mike still on?
okay. well, we need then a motion to consider charging customer credit card fees to the customers. How did you phrase that?
Kim:
To allow the processing company to charge the fee directly to the customer, as opposed to the district?
Jason:
Okay, I'll make a motion to, change our credit card fees so that the credit card processor charges the credit card holder directly for the fees.
Board Voting All Speak:
I'll second that. Thank you. All right, having a second? We'll go to vote. Jim. Hi, Tera I Jana, I Leah I and I vote I as well. So that passes unanimously. We will now be, before we, after, Yeah 90 days.
Nathan:
I was just going to say is that board consensus for 90 days? Perfect. so that'll get the first notification will go out in the building mailer that we send out beginning of February.
we'll do it again in March, and then we'll start collecting it for the April billing cycle.
Jason:
All right. Very good. Okay, that will close down. Then the, finance director report. We'll move on now to, the legal counsel's report.
Kim:
you have a copy of my report, and we have one action item. There is a or an I'm sorry, an amendment to the IGA with the city concerning the parks and stormwater.
And the only effect of that amendment is to extend the time period for us to get all of the properties transferred. I think as you heard in December, Nathan had reported that there's an engineering company looking at what easements we need to keep. And, so all of that needs to be done before we can actually transfer the property.
The city has approved this, everything else in those IGAs is really done at this point, except that property transfer. But it's just going to take time.
Tera:
And so can I just ask a question about the sale of the farm properties. And we are locating, Did we make any progress in locating the passwords to access that information?
Nathan:
So, I've talked to, Joel with Kim's office several times on it.
Short answer is no. I dug through all of our files that we've got. I went through the hard files we have upstairs. I can't find anything that sets up that account or even outlines it. Kim's office has called a couple times to the phone number that's listed with I can. There's, like, four company names that have all morphed into each other.
whatever they are now, and literally their voicemail. Like, they just help. It's really, really strange. There's, like, no option to talk to a human being. They just say to leave a message and they will get back to you. And it seems to be this infinite black hole. So neither one of us has heard anything back yet.
I'm we're we'll keep chopping away at it, but I'm running out of running out of alleys to chase down. It's a really, really odd situation.
Tera:
So we don't know if there's any kind of workaround
Nathan:
now that we can find.
Kim:
So I think at some point, Tera, what we may do is just put it up for sale and put the onus on someone who wants to bid on it to figure it out, and they'll need to tell us what they find, and then we can evaluate whether their bid is good or not Good.
Tera:
Okay. Thank you.
Jason:
All right. I'll make a motion then to, extend the, IGA with the city through 2020. December 31st, 2024.
Board Voting All Speak:
Any other, anything else I need to add to that? nope. That's fine. Okay. I'll second. Great. Having a second. We'll go to vote. Jim.
James:
I'm going to do a rare, No. Okay. Okay. Tera.
Tera:
Just want a clear. We're we're voting on the first of the First Amendment to the IGA between the city and us regarding the operation, maintenance and transfer of recreation properties. Is that what we're doing? Correct. Okay. and all all that, all that. The only changes to extend the date from December of 2023, which is passed to is and is now December of 2024.
Because we need the city needs more time. We need more time to assess, all the properties.
Nathan:
Yeah. So we we have to go through each of the individual properties, and kind of take it through a three step process. So there's properties that aren't going to be impacted. We don't have a we meaning Castle Pines North Metro District doesn't have any existing utilities in them.
Those ones can go any time. then there's kind of a priority list that we're building to work through the rest of them. So we need to all of the all of the lots and, land has been identified. We need to go through and have easements written for our water lines and sewer lines that don't currently exist because we own the land.
So we never generated an easement. so we're going to go through and identify those easements. And then the other thing we have to do is break out real property. so it would be actually creating some specific parcels. So we don't want our lift stations that are currently sitting in parks, trails and open space to exist on a permanent easement.
We want them to have their own lot. Same thing with, well, sites. And so we're going to kind of just work through that process. it doesn't look like we're really the early it doesn't look like it doesn't. The objective isn't to get to a point where we kind of have this one big package, but really just come up with a plan, to take chunks of it at a time.
So by the time we get to the end of the year, we've already had it completed, rather than have this, like, big looming, kind of like balloon project I'll take care of at once, if that answers your question.
Tera:
Thank you for that detail. I vote I
Jason:
okay, Jana, I vote I as well.
Leah:
Leah, can I ask our council if, he has any reservations?
about an I vote
Kim:
I don't Leah, if I have any reservation, which would be very small. It is that December 31st may not be enough time, and we may have to extend that again. the reason being, there's a there are just a lot of pieces of property. And we actually started this work prior to working with Parker Water and Sand. So we have a lot of, you know, little tiny properties and big properties.
And just to kind of give you a concept of what a big deal it is, where we own a park, we have water and sewer lines running through that park. But as Nathan said, since we owned the park, we never drafted an easement. So the engineers have to figure out where are the pipes and then draft the easement.
have it surveyed and prepare the easement documents. And there are hundreds of these. And once we, as Nathan said, as we knock them down one at a time, you know, in in areas, it'll be completed. But surveying and all of that takes time and it's affected by the weather. so that would be my only reservation.
That may be December 31st is not long enough.
James:
That's your kind of touch on where I was going to try, only because I several hundred properties. And if you looked at things and gone to some of the city council meetings, there seemed to be even confusion about some of the parcels and, and, you know, ownership and things like that and tracking people down.
so had a, a significant concern that we weren't going to be able to do it in the amount of time available. I don't think a year is even close to enough. So.
Kim:
And that that's possible. I think the goal of this, though, was to just to buy us that much time. And then we would do another amendment.
You know, the city's in the same boat as we are. So we're all kind of working together to make it happen. and this prompts us to try to get it done.
James:
I mean, is there a plan in place right now? I mean, yeah. I mean, is it detailed in an adequate to actually accomplish what we think we're going to accomplish here?
Nathan? I mean, I guess I'm asking because you have reservations. I had reservations only because I've seen the maps and things like that. And, and I'm just really concerned that we're able to close on this stuff and do it efficiently. And if there's not a plan in place now, you know, detailed enough to to, you know, basically go forward with that.
I don't see how we close by then. We're already essentially into February, you know. Yes. Yep.
Kim:
And Nathan's I think engage the engineers to do this work. And they they're working with our GIS contractor to they'll just knock them down as fast as they can. But, you know, some big snowstorms and other things could affect that. we'll just hope to finish it by the end of the year.
And if not, So. we'll amend the IGA again.
Tera:
Right. And then what is the risk? Because essentially we've passed the date that was in the IGA. So are we running at risk if we don't at least move the date a year?
Kim:
we're just kind of flying blindly at that point. What this is really doing is, is almost putting a deadline on us to shoot for, you know, no matter what, we need to get this done.
And if it takes five years, we're going to have to take five years to get it done. The the idea is, let's not do that. Let's shoot for December 31st and try to make it happen.
Tera:
Right. But my question was, we've already the the IGA, is it at risk for being, non-compliant or at risk because we've already passed the date that's written in the intergovernmental agreement?
Kim:
Yes. It's already we're already out of compliance. And so is the, so is the city. So it's sort of a this is correcting all of that at least until December.
James:
Is there anything you could recommend at this point besides just putting a date in and then slipping that date and slipping that date? I mean, what's a better path forward?
I guess from a legal standpoint, I think that's really the best. And then the engineers will have to lay out what areas of the district they're going to concentrate it on, and then we can bring that back to you as it happens, because as the board, you have to do all the the property transfers, anything to do with real property.
So hopefully we'll be bringing those back to you in chunks, with deeds to be signed and, and approved for transfer. And hopefully by December 31st, most of it'll be done, but we'll see.
Nathan:
Yeah. And so I do we're it's not completed yet. We're still in the draft form. But we have been working with Level 3. getting all of like the initial data collection.
They've reached out and touch base with their surveyors just to kind of get a general idea of how how feasible, they believe at least getting the, easements and properties all defined and all broken out. And so they think they do think a year is a reasonable time frame for that. The, to finish up that timeline, I've got I can't remember.
Have you got a meeting in the next week or so, and then recurring ones. But so that next step is to, Jay Blackburn is the project lead for it. get us his complete kind of like, outline, timing schedule. we're just waiting on the list of priorities from, from the city's perspective in terms of what properties they want to start with really has, like, more to do with ones that are road adjacent on work they want to do on.
but so we are very close to having that like kind of defined timeline that we're planning on working off of for the remainder of the year. I don't know how that ties in to, like, doing deeds and the legal side. I don't have anything else for that sentence.
Kim:
we can draft those pretty quickly.
James:
I've got a scenario here. Is there anything?
And then this is for both of you. Upcoming projects. Is there anything that we're doing? upcoming in 2024 and potentially 2025 that could be impacted by the transfer of properties and who owns it and, you know, whether we transferred it to the city. I want to think that through and make sure that we're not going to get tied in knots when we actually go to dig someplace and we're not allowed to dig there.
We haven't properly transfer it or right in the middle of transferring it.
Nathan:
Yeah, not with it. Not with any of our properties. the only one, the actually the only one that we need to get, taken care of faster has nothing to do with the city IGA that one that we're, we're is working with Hidden point Metro district.
We need to define an easement. And that's for the lift stations. but nothing else. We have they have we have 4 CPNMD projects is going to be affected by that because we own all the land that we need to for the anything that we've got going on. one of the first properties that the city wants to look at is the, we call it the North Open Space.
and that is for the, you know, if you're right, at the intersection of Castle Pines Parkway and Monarch headed north along Monarch, the city does want to add some sidewalks and stuff, as part of that project. And so that was one of their priority parcels to get figured out, mostly so that they can put a sidewalk on it, without having to do any additional paperwork.
But, I don't see any really strong conflicts or anything.
Leah:
And Mr. Campbell ready to vote if we're still voting.
I just wanted to get some. I just wanted to get Kim's input. But given the discussion, like, do we have to bring it to a motion again, or should we continue the vote?
Kim:
we can continue the vote. I did want to remind you all that we did, sometime last year, a license so that the city could access whatever it needs to access.
But we still own all those properties, and that situation will continue until each parcel is conveyed. So every one of these parcels will be looked at before it's conveyed to see what do we need to keep, how long do we need to keep it? And, you know, in response to your question, it'll be much more detailed than the way you asked the question, because each parcel will have to be examined before it's conveyed.
Jason:
All right. Very good. Leah, do you want to go ahead and vote now?
Leah:
I Thank you Kim.
Jason:
All right. Very good. Leah, do you want to go and vote now I, right Thank you Kim. Very good. Thank you. And I vote I as well. So on 4 to 1 this will pass me yeah yeah yeah we're all good. So, vote of 4 to 1, will pass this, amend or this, where am I?
Yeah. This amendment for the, to extend the IGA to 12/31/24. Thank you.
Kim:
And that's it. That's it for me.
Jason:
All right. Very good. We'll close out the, legal counsel's report, and we'll move on to the district manager's report.
Nathan:
before I get into, the topics I want to cover on the agenda, are there any other questions related to my report that you guys have?
Jana:
To your report?
Tera:
Yeah. Just have a quick question. So as I read this, this board has been invited to attend the meeting on March the 12th with the city of Castle Pines for the conservation panel?
Nathan:
Potentially. Yeah. So, Michael reached out to me directly to see if CPNMD would want to show up. and so, it's the the last email exchange I had was Michael saying like, hey, let's keep, you know, firing back and forth ideas.
So nothing is set in stone yet. but the city was looking at doing, hosting a panel for the entire city boundaries around, like, water conservation and water conservation issues. So he reached out to myself and Ron Read, I offered to reach out to Elizabeth Bowman, who is with Resource Central, to see if she would want to come down and do any kind of presentation talk there.
So I just wanted to get notification or get just kind of get it on your guys's radar that that invitation is likely coming. and then if this board is invited, the Parker Water and Sand Board would also be invited to attend.
Tera:
Thank you. I, I love that we're going to have our quench buggy, and there will be a QR code that's going to drive people to our website.
I'm excited about that. but when a couple questions and this may be part of what you're going to do, but I noticed in the Kennedy Jenks report, they kept saying that, The Yorkshire project is ahead of the city's pavement restoration schedule, and the monarch is ahead of the city's pavement restoration. I would love some clarification whether.
Hopefully, that doesn't mean that we're going to pay to pay to pave that piece of those pieces of roads twice, if it's just that the project's ahead of schedule.
Nathan:
So yeah, the ahead means there that we go first. So water lines need to be replaced before they do the road behind us.
Tera:
Just the way that that was reading, I wasn't really clear on that.
It was like, please tell me what we're not going to tear that up and pay it twice,
Nathan:
right? Exactly. So in the end, yeah, I can jump into the, MOU that I have a copy of the old one that we used, for the Yorkshire Water Line replacement. That one will be a little bit different. We do have to patch back the asphalt there.
That was always the plan though. So we're going to we'll put our trench line. We'll have to replace the asphalt. The city has it on their schedule for a milling overlay. So we're going to get it in a position that they do the milling overlay work. And so we'll pay for the asphalt patching as we would. The city will pay for the milling overlay as they would.
And then we don't have to tear anybody's new work up. the, MOU that we're basing on, the it's basically the one that's in there is the one we did for this, section of Castle Pines Parkway. we will pay for a portion of the concrete that's being removed, but. And replaced, but not nearly as much as we would have had to if we went out and did it on our own.
so the the really the only difference is we paid we agreed to pay a quarter of the project out here because there were four lanes of traffic. So it made sense just to take one of them. the stretch that we're on on monarch headed north from Castle Pines Parkway does not have the same amount of, you know, it's not two lanes, both directions.
and so that gets us, to that just that 5% increase, that 30%, in the areas that we're replacing, the water line. So it's only in the, you know, if there's and I think for the, for that stretch, there's not anywhere we wouldn't have had to replace the road. but yeah.
Tera:
Thank you. That was my concern.
I just didn't want, you know, we we basically we're all taxpayers here. And whether it's us or the city, you want to make sure we're not ripping up anybody's work and right yet paying for it twice.
Nathan:
Okay. Yeah. That is that is the exact scenario that we are working to avoid.
Tera:
Okay. Thanks. And then, I know we're still on this, but then just preemptively when you get to the, the to slow the flow and the lawn replacement program, I really would like it if you do begin and give us a little, context with who resource central is absolutely.
Nathan:
and so for the MOU, I don't know if you guys had a chance to read through it or not. If there are any other questions, really, the only things that need to be changed is the, 30%. And then I'm waiting on Lisa with Kennedy Jenks to give me, just a quick summary. I can't let me get this pulled up.
I got my I got myself lost in my own document here. ... yeah. So, for the CPNMD overview, just really clearly defining what we're going to do and then, updating the engineering scope. So I know that, Larry and I met last week on this, and so I know they've got the the city is going to handle the rest of the, adjustments to the MOU that need to be done.
the last one was done kind of, as I understand it, with board, knowledge. it looks like, looks like Jim Worley. Jim Worley signed it. David McIntyre also signed it, but I don't know if it was how that was handled at the board meeting. So I guess that's more of a question for Kim on, how we need to handle that, just to make sure that we go into that document the right and legal way.
Kim:
It's the board needs to approve that.
Nathan:
Can they approve it with the can they approve it based on the old one, knowing that the changes 30% the only substantial stub I can never say that word substantive change is 25 to 30%.
Kim:
Yes. Okay. So approving it in the form of the old agreement with one change, the 25 to 30% would work.
Describer:
This is a long pause by the participants while they review the relevant document.
Tera:
Where in the MOU would that 30% be noted?
Nathan:
I was just looking for that.
Jana off-mic:
Thank you, Tera, for asking.
Tera:
I guess why, what's the, What why would we need to do that in this meeting instead of doing it next month? What's the time crunch? What's the double?
Nathan:
I don't know that there is a reason that we wouldn't be able to. And I would for me. Yeah, we can. We can have it drafted. Bring it back.
Tera:
Let's do. I would be more comfortable doing that.
Nathan:
Okay, cool. And then I'll have. I'll get Kim's office looped into it to say they can get it in. I, I agree. Oh. All right. We'll do that then. So I will bring that amend or the adjusted agreement to or a similar agreement to form to make sure that includes the 30% to the board at the February board meeting for approval.
Okay. so with regard to, the slow, the flow, and lawn replacement program, so these are, two conservation driven programs that are run by Resource Central. Resource central is a nonprofit that serves here in Colorado. They have a number of municipalities we have or that they work with. we have worked with them for.
Oh, man. more than ten years. They've been here as long as I have, primarily through the Slow the Flow program. so slow the flow, the way that that program generally works is it's an irrigation system audit that, our residents are able to get on their properties, commercial or, residential customers can get the slow flow irrigation audit.
They send somebody out to your property. that person is, you know, irrigation, landscaping expert. And they go through all kinds of stuff. They look at plant materials. You have entire have have installed sun exposure is, you know, your different equipment and sprinkler heads and irrigation clocks. And then they'll actually give you a report that kind of summarizes their recommendations, not only on how to run your existing, your existing system.
So they'll say, like, you know, when it's sunny, water this zone for this long, but also a list of recommended upgrades that you could do to increase your water wise usage. historically, we've had a huge program participation in Slow the Flow. More often than not, we fully book it out, and we've got people waiting for, you know, on the waitlist for the following year.
Last year, our program participation was down, pretty significantly. I think that that's, driven by two primary things. One, it took us a much, much longer than, I think any of us would have liked to see to just get that program approved and in place. and then also, it was just a really, really wet spring.
So, you know, being water conscious wasn't really a top of mind for a lot of people. in recent years, Resource Central has expanded their services. and they, they, you know, they adjust stuff on and off, but they've moved into this, like, lawn replacement program that the district elected to participate in. last year. And so the the lawn replacement program comes with, a certain, you know, number of stipulations from Resource Central's perspective.
those, and then you can go through there's like a minimum number amount of lawn you have to really remove, you have, up to $1,000 total benefit per property. This one is not available to commercial properties. This one is just for residential properties. And so the way that that, generally speaking, works is that, they have gone out and they have negotiated prices with existing, landscape companies that are going to actually come out and do the work.
And so they have a, you know, they've got their big negotiation file, they like, hey, we can give you all of these. The and I had I haven't seen the numbers for 2024 yet. they're I know they're a little bit different but not substantially. and then the district, the district also supplements that as well. So Resource Central gets lawn removal down to I think it was $2.50 a square foot, for the resident to pay.
And then the district also had supplements a dollar of that. So you can get up to 660ft² of your lawn removed for, you know, what comes down to roughly a dollar per square foot or $1.50, whatever the math is, dollar per square foot. with that, they do have some program limitations that they require of homeowners that want to take that lawn replacement program.
And really what they're looking at is they just don't want non permeable surfaces going back in. so that's why they specifically say that you can't participate in this program. If you're going to use concrete you can't participate in this program if you're going to use you know astroturf or any any of that stuff because that really doesn't have the, overall environmental impact that they're really, really going for.
And so they also, you know, they talk about the, the different things you're not allowed to. And so they do have a list of things that those residents aren't allowed to do as part of that program. in terms of what they are allowed to do, it's much wider. It just needs to be a water wise landscape. you can, you can you can kind of play with that thousand dollar band, that maximum benefit.
And so you can get less lawn removed and also participate in their garden in a box program. we have done the garden in a box program before that was like incredibly popular. So you can if you sign up, there's two separate deadline application deadlines for garden in a box, and you get your designs approved through Resource Central and you can say, hey, these are I want this garden in about box tool kit.
and that'll actually give you the plantings to come back in. and then, you know, make your lawn look awesome. we, we go one step further. there's, I think 2 or 3 other municipalities that do this as well, with our standard rebate program. So once you've got the it's $1.50. So once you have that, we still carry the in-house program of like $0.50 a square foot for sod removal, and there's limitations for commercial or residential.
So once you that's kind of our hammer to make sure that that project gets to completion. and so once they submit their application, get through the resource central process, get the lawn removed, get the garden in the box picked up. If they prove to us that they have finished their installation, they're still eligible for that extra 50 cent benefit to drive down.
You know, you can get with the garden in a box program. You get roughly like a 500 square foot section of your lawn replaced, you know, at $1.50 square foot and then get another $0.50, rebate on top of that. I know it's a little bit complicated. I already have, Bailey and her team working on ways to, like, very much simplify that.
we've got some advertising stuff we're going to do. Resource central does a really fantastic job with their like, marketing toolkits. And so we have all of that. I'm more than happy to pass kind of that information along. it's one of those things that like it's very it's kind of difficult to explain all the processes like out loud, but when you're actually just going through it, it's just like you just take the next step and it's really not that complicated.
Once you're in it, fill out, jump online, fill out your application and away you go.
Tera:
Sorry. Thank you for that. And then another question. So do you, recall how much did we budget for this? Because I notice that we pay resource central looks like not to exceed 30 for the lawn replacement, which is residential only. And then we pay another 16 for Slow the Flow, which is both residential and commercial. So we budgeted for that.
Plus we have some kind of correct. Yeah. So I can go I'm trying to pull up the budget quickly. I think the total budget line item that we have, bear with me one second. I think it was 120,000, but I want to double check that.
...I would say. Phyllis, do you have your budget sheet handy?
Phyllis:
I can get it all done.
Nathan:
Mine is taking forever to load. I just want to. We're looking for the, the water Enterprise fund. What? We budgeted. Budgeted for conservation. Okay.
Oh, I got it here. Water rebates. Yeah. So for the total water rebate program, we have $120,000. And that includes the contracts with Slow the Flow and Resource Central. the idea with the rest of the bulk of that is to really take a hard swing at commercial this year and see if we can't get some major ways to start taking out open space.
Okay. Thank you.
James:
One question, since it was, you know, per your report here, there was less people taking advantage of it last year. Is there any holdover funds from last year that we committed to them?
Nathan:
no. So and that's one of the downsides with their contracts is they are use it or lose it. So we're committed to the 30,000.
and then I don't think we, you know, we just do the you know, budget year to year. So I don't think we earmarked anything to hold in reserves for unspent program funds. Okay. Thanks.
Jana:
I have a comment. These things excite me, and I think they're fantastic. And, and so the biggest thing I want to say is I hope we can advertise them really well, like, that's, you know, we've got this staff on board to do that.
I would love to see these things really marketable and, you know, easy to understand, like you just said. So kudos.
Nathan:
Yeah, I'll make sure. And that was one of the things even earlier in my initial conversations with the communications team, that this was going to be a really heavy push out at the beginning of the year. and then I will make sure that they're at future meetings as well.
So that they can, you know, add more color and detail to kind of what their plans are, around this type of stuff. especially for that February meeting that's going to be right at the edge of when we want to do our big marketing push on this. Anyway.
James:
Any pictures that a quench buggy?
Nathan:
actually, I can, I can forward that. I can forward the it's it's it's not very fun to look at in terms of the artist proof because it's, you know, it's a layout format. but I can get the, I can get that forwarded over to you guys. We actually just finalized the, design on that today.
It looks. It looks really cool. I can even pull it up to show you guys on your way out to. Thanks.
Tera:
so do we need any formal action on the resource control stuff?
Nathan:
Yep. I just need, direction to sign the two agreements. included in the packet. One for, slow the flow and one for the lawn replacement program. I did have both of those contracts reviewed by legal. there was one formatting error that they copied.
There weren't any other concerns.
Board Voting All Speak:
So I move to direct the, district manager to sign the slow the flow contract and lawn replacement program contract with Resource Central as presented in our packets. And I will second that. Great. Having a second. Let's move to vote. Jim. I. Great. Tera I Jana. I, Leah. I. It's an eye for me as well. So that passes unanimously.
Jason:
And so we'll move on to the next topic of, update on the sanitary sewer spill violation.
Nathan:
All right. Let me get back to.
and so to answer the question that came up earlier, why are we receiving a civil fine? So we were under a compliance advisory that was placed in, 2022 for our sanitary sewer overflow events. this past June, we had a, had another spill, during the like Rain event that dropped a tornado and Highlands Ranch and all that fun stuff.
We so we did all of our normal spill reporting. We did all of that. everything seemed like it was fine. The state hadn't given given us any indication that they were going to issue a violation. I think we've talked about that before. and then they did, and it was very much the same process with letting us know that we were going to get a civil penalty.
And it's been fairly gray around that. we were in a meeting where it was with, myself, the project engineer with Level 3 and the state where the state representative kind of casually mentioned, hey, sometime in, you know, the next couple of months, we should have the amount of your civil penalty. that was the first indication that we had been given that we were definitely going to be assessed a civil penalty.
it was in the, you know, the initial documentation, that it was possible. Not it had there'd been no, no indication that one was coming. as we've been asking them for how much that civil penalty might be, they haven't really been able to give us anything. The, the statute wasn't necessarily designed for sanitary sewer overflows.
It was much more geared toward wastewater treatment plants that have continuous leaks going. And so all of the, you know, the fine wording and everything, the at least that I read through is more about like up to $10,000 a day for your violation. you know, we were actively in violation for like 40 minutes or something like a very short period of time.
So we don't know what that ultimately looks like. they did tell us that we were getting close, that we should get that number in the next couple of weeks, that the amount of money that we are spending in our capital program has a heavy it has a heavy impact on that. And when we're, you know, looking at between, you know, 9 to $12 million to bring those wastewater lift stations up to fruition.
and we've met every other one of their metrics. My hope is that it's going to be, you know, a relatively mild fine, but I still don't really have like, it's all very frustratingly vague. and so, as in terms of why they decided to issue the violation, when I asked them that, they just said that every or not the violation, why they why they were going to a civil penalty.
They just told me that everybody that gets a violation gets a civil penalty.
So there we go. there, depending on the amount, there are some interesting options that we can do, potentially do with states permission. We can rather than just pay the fine to the state. There may be or will likely be an opportunity for us to just participate in like a local, like stormwater rehabilitation city program. And so if the city has a stormwater project that they're working on, rather than pay the state the fine, there is likely going to be an opportunity for us to give that money toward that project.
So at least, you know, we're not paying a fine out of the community. We can still keep it and and capture some sort of a community benefit. But, I think everybody that, you know, has been kind of caught off with this kind of caught off board with this at every stage has had a few like, moments.
And this was certainly one of those, yeah. Any other questions on the, SSO violation or anything else we've got coming on that one?
Jason:
Anybody have any questions? Thanks for staying on top of this, Nathan. I know it's a long process.
Nathan:
Yeah, we're we're getting there. we've got we now. We have reached the phase. well, we're almost.
Once we get through the civil penalty point, we've reached the phase with the state, where the only really thing we have left to do is actually do the wastewater program. And so Level 3 will be doing just writing a quick update to the state. And that has to happen on a monthly basis. so that's due at the it's due at the end of, the last calendar day of the month.
So the second week of every month we have a standing meeting between me, Level 3, Kennedy Jenks, get together to make sure that they have Level 3, has all the, you know, latest and greatest updated information. They'll send that out. So it'll be kind of a a little bit of a maintenance period while we work toward the works for the designs for the lift stations.
we also signed and sent out, the checks for the design review process to begin. Those went out this this afternoon. Those went out. So we're getting ready to do our first round of submissions to the state for the a bidding package on the lift stations. So that's exciting.
and then the only other thing I had on the agenda for me today is I or for my section, is that my surgery has been officially scheduled for the week of February 7th. I will be basically down and out and comatose for the remainder of that week, and then I'll work from home as much as I can.
but definitely returning to the office, I think on the, February 19th. So, about ten days, ten, 12 days later, in my absence, there will be kind of two people filling in for me, administrative and other functions and questions will go to Susan and the operations concerns, or needs will go to operations manager Will Parker.
And so they're, they're on board. I'll have, individual meetings with both of them, that either early that week, like on the fifth or sixth or the week prior. just to get them up to speed on anything that might be going on, answer any questions they have. so along those lines, if there's anything that you guys can think of that I need to make sure we have some sort of, continuity in place for, for that 12 working days or so or 12 actual days, let me know.
But we're going to go through as a team and, try and make sure we have all those gaps covered. Unless Kim wants to take my spot. No thanks. Yeah.
James:
quick question on Yorkshire. You just said between 22nd and 29th, we're talking. What month? Just the,
Nathan:
oh, of this month. Yeah. So Yorkshire, we took pipe delivery last month or last week. they are getting ready to mobilize and it does look like they're going to be out here. next Monday to officially start cutting concrete and putting the temporary bypass in place.
notifications were play. I think I had the my report, but notifications did get put on. not only the houses along Yorkshire, but physically posted to everybody in that entire neighborhood. And then I also reached out to the HOA presidents to let them know, our timelines on both of those.
James:
Thank you. and then the monarch work.
have you been involved, I guess, with Larry, as far as traffic and things like that when we start digging up over there.
Nathan:
Yeah. And so the bid is the bid documents are on here, but that was nestled under under the city. And so the city's got been working directly with Kennedy Jenks to build us into the phasing of that project.
So the the official bid went to the city will reimburse them for the water line and then ultimately the other 30%. But it'll be done under their management. And then our inspector will be out there to make sure that the water line goes in a proper properly. But the city will be holding kind of the overall project manager to make sure that we're all in flow.
Jason:
All right. I guess we can close down the district manager's report and open this up to directors. Matters. Anybody have any comments?
Leah:
I have a question and we might not have an answer to it yet, but I received an email, from the county about the January Water Commission meeting. And so I guess. I would love to understand, like, how we're if or how we're expected to work with them.
and if it makes sense for us to try to attend those meetings or. I don't know, it just it feels really like gray and ambiguous to me.
Nathan:
yeah. So it's the commissioners water. The water Commission is still very much in its infancy. I was able to attend online, at least for the first meeting. I'm going to try and get to as many of them as I can.
just to kind of keep a pulse on what participation that they're looking in. And so it is a little bit gray at this stage too, but that's also to be expected with any new commission kind of getting their feet under them. so at the outset, they're much more focused on like their own bylaws. They've had some kind of high level discussions about, you know, what they want to look for.
one of the first things that they're going to be looking to do is, getting, stakeholders inside of Douglas County to help build and kind of an inventory list of what all of the, you know, individual, water rights and assets in those kind of portfolios. Look at, when they start officially making requests for that information.
Those are definitely things we'll bring to the board and have those to have those discussions here. but it'll be, something that we do keep, keep a close ear on and eye on just to make sure that we can one know what we've got going on, regionally and so close to home, but also look for opportunities to have input and or participation. yeah.
Leah:
I guess follow up question. Thank you. Nathan would be I mean, again, I know this is more in the future, but as we're exploring, renewable water options and opportunities like, do we have to coordinate with them, do they have some type of governing authority? Can we make our own decisions for our own metro district?
Do we know,
Nathan:
Kim, do you can you speak to kind of what the general abilities of those types of commissions are? Do they have the ability to?
Kim:
It all depends on what's what's in the formation document, which I have not seen, but I can sure make a note of that and report back to you next month in writing, because I won't be able to speak.
Apparently.
Leah:
Oh no thank you. I just wanted to make sure that a we don't go too far down a path and then that derails us. so just wanting to understand.
Can they be given that type of authority then? It sounds like would and and who would give them that authority? Like the, Douglas County commissioners?
Kim:
It would be the forming entities. And whether or not the county has any authority over you is questionable. It's very unlikely. okay. As a water district and especially as a sewer district, you are, believe it or not, one of the most powerful entities in the state just because of the health and safety issues involved.
Leah:
Okay. That was all I had. Thanks.
James:
I, have a sort of a follow up along Leah's question. we haven't talked about inclusion. Granted we our. We didn't really have a meeting in December and we kind of talked, you know, late last year. And, I'm just wondering, you know, we talked about having people in and NDAs being signed and things like that.
and I'm just questioning the status of that, that trying to put you on the spot. But it, you know, it's brand new year and maybe we can kick that off again and maybe have those folks in.
Nathan:
no, I'm I'm right there with you. I actually, was looking, at my I've got this project management app thing that I use, and I actually have next week to reach out and touch base before I'm out.
to circle back with those entities, make sure, this is the exact time frame that they asked me to reach back out and, and and check back in. So, my hope is that we'll have someone have those presentations, maybe even online as soon as, like, February study session or February board meeting.
Jason:
All right. Do we have any other matters? Hearing none. We'll go ahead and close out that section, and we will move to adjourn the meeting for tonight. Thank you, everybody, for your input. It's been a great meeting.