Board Meeting
November 25, 2024
Transcript
Describer:
Board Meeting Agenda
Monday, November 25th, 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 November 25th, 2024, board meeting agenda.
IV. Consider approving the October 23rd, 2024, special work session minutes.
V. Consider approving the October 28th, 2024, board meeting minutes.
VI. Public comment period. (Three-minute maximum per person).
VII. Communication Director’s report.
A. January open house, discuss dates and times.
VIII. Finance Director's report.
A. Ratify claims for payment including check numbers 28905 -
28960 and electronic payments issued from October 23, 2024
through November 20, 2024.
Checks October $1,371,400.15 November $470,466.44 Totals $1,841,866.59
Electronic Payments (all funds) October $20,058.05 November $9,567.31 $39,625.36
Total Expenditures October $1,391,458.20 November $490,033.75 Totals $1,881,491.95
IX. Consideration of “A resolution Delegating Authority to the District
Manager and Adopting Financial Controls.”
X. Consideration of Proposed 2025 Rates and Fees
XI. Presentation and Public Hearing of Proposed 2025 Budget
A. Close Public Hearing
B. Consider Approval of Budget, Mill Levy and Appropriation
of Funds or postpone to December 11.
XII. Legal Counsel's report.
A. Consider: Memorandum of Understanding RE: Regional Water
Efficiency Study.
XIII. District Manager’s report.
A. Update: CDPHE lab deficiency report.
B. Consider: 2025 Board Meeting Schedule.
XIV. Discuss necessity of January study session, or potential work session.
XV. Director’s Matters.
XVI. Adjourn.
Describer:
The video starts on graphic with a white background and forest green letters which says “Castle Pines North Metro District Board Meeting November 25, 2024”. The meeting opens on a shot of all board members present.
Board President Jason Blankaert:
good evening and welcome to the Castle Pines North Metro district board meeting. today is Monday, November 25th, 2024. Approximately 6:00 pm. Let's, let's call this meeting to order and start with, Pledge of Allegiance.
All Speak:
Pledge 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.
Board Voting All Speak:
Sorry. Okay, let's go ahead and move on to roll call. Jim. Present. No conflicts. Tera. Present. No conflicts. Jana. Present. No conflicts. Leah. Present. No conflicts. And I'm Jason Blankaert and I'm present no conflicts.
Jason:
Let's go ahead and close out. Item two. And combine. Unless there's any objections combined. three, four and five. the board meeting agenda, the special work session minutes, and the board meeting minutes.
Board Member Tera Radloff:
I move to approve the November 25th, 2024. Oh, no. The October 23rd, 2024 special work session minutes as presented the October 28th, 2024 board meetings as presented
Jason:
and November 25th, 2024. And the agenda and the actual agendas. Okay. Thank you. Yes,
Jana:
I will I will second that.
Board Voting All Speak:
All right. Having a second. We'll go to vote Jim approve Tera.
Approve. Jana. Approve Leah. Approve and I approve. We'll go ahead and pass those minutes, and we'll open up to a public comment period.
Jason:
Do we have people out there wishing to speak?
Please give your name and address and.
Steve Dawes, Castle Pines Resident:
Steve Dawes. 5703 Jasper point circle. Daniels gate neighborhood. Last time I asked whether or not the contractor who was responsible for dumping the asphalt into the manhole,
Leah:
that cause it's never connected. But, like, you could still hear the volume, and I couldn't control the volume. Like I couldn't turn the microphones on and off, so I just,
Jana:
Hey Leah Go on mute. Okay. Oh,
Steve:
am I good to go?
Jana:
Please proceed. Steve,
Steve:
the contractor who dumped the asphalt into that manhole. Have they accepted responsibility financially and legally for that? That was one of my first questions, and I didn't see anything in the packet materials regarding it.
Nathan:
yeah, I can address that really quick. I apologize, I didn't close the loop on that.
We did send out a joint statement with the city, the week that it happened. but yes, the contractor immediately fully accepted, financial responsibility for it. So there won't be any funds expended, either by the district or the city to resolve that.
Steve:
Thank you. Last time the board wanted to explore inviting the city manager to discuss a potential merger with the city.
So I take it that it's, attempt to, I'm not saying it's good or bad, but an effort to eliminate the special district and have it be a separate department of the city, as that's what it sounds like. I don't know if it would include the waste water aspect or not. Certainly many cities have a water department, but I was curious if you were going to publish anything in the materials that would explain what the thinking is on this, or is it just really preliminary?
And, you're looking at a long term possibility or what?
Jason:
I'll take that. So, yeah, this is just exploratory at this time. So, there's nothing, that's really worth putting out there. we're exploring a bunch of different avenues.
Steve:
Thank you. I noticed that on the agenda, there is discussion about a rate increase. Is there a deadline that you have in mind for deciding on a rate increase, whether or not to do one?
Nathan:
Yeah. So the, general consensus at the board meeting, was to go ahead and move forward with the rate increase. We have unofficially voted on that yet. but we are already reaching out, so you'll see, information on that in the, Castles Pines Connection, as well as your upcoming billing insert. We're also planning to open, to host an open house here in January.
And then the first, the first time residents will see that will be for January usage, but it won't be until the February bill.
Steve:
Thank you. I would hope that what the board decides to do is publish an explanation for what you're planning. I looked through the materials that were put out today, and it's really difficult for the average schmo like me to figure out what the budget is and what the expenditures are going to be and why that rate increase.
Maybe I'm not saying that we should or shouldn't have one. I don't know. What I'd like to see is board publishes before any decision to allow the public to come to a public meeting and say, we're going to do a rate increase if we are, here are the reasons one, 2 or 3 or 4 or 5, as opposed to just adopting some rate increase.
Because right now I have no idea what the increase might be if there is going to be an increase or not. I noted last time that Mr. Seter published in his memo and did again today the allegations by Parker Water and Sanitation District, as to why they bailed out of that merger, last year or whatever it was.
And I asked last time whether there would be a response by the city, in other words, whether or not the city regarded these allegations as true or not true. Why I think it's important is because if you're contemplating a rate increase, to me, the rate increases depending upon the number of customers have, for example, Denver Water, I don't know how many customers they have, a couple of million.
And their rates are low. And because the economy of scale allows them to spread out the cost. But in a smaller district, when you're pumping well water, the price per household is going to be much higher. So if there were an attempt to merge with Parker would seem to me to be a way to reduce rates or keep them and increase more modest.
And if so, is that something you're going to continue to explore?
I guess it's a separate public hearing on the budget, so I'll defer any comments before I get to that. I saw in the last, minutes that somebody had asked a comparison of rates per gallon of water, among other similarly sized districts. I think the public would like to see that comparison as well. And there was a request by directors in Enquist and Mulvey for more documentation and justification for each progress request.
I'm wondering if that's going to happen as well.
Jason:
A Steve. Yeah, so we went through all this in our study session last week. so I encourage you to check it out online. this graph was part of it, and explains all the different avenues we're looking at for the rate increases. And when we were asking for comparisons with other districts and such.
Steve:
Yeah. The problem is, number one, there's no public participation and study sessions. Number two, there's a lot of those charts in the materials to hand out. But for the average bozo like me, I don't necessarily understand what that means. In other words, if you're saying we need a rate increase, then I would expect that the way to handle it would be okay.
Members of the public, we have more capital expenditures this year than we anticipated. Here's the amount. And here's how you calculate a rate increase per household. For that reason, a bunch of charts are great, but I don't think it explains it adequately for the average public representative.
Nathan:
And the those breakdowns and kind of bullet point talking points will be included in our advertising, the upcoming billing.
Steve:
Oh that's good. I mean, I, I think that's important to do. for example, it was reported in the no minutes that Nathan explained that because the district is relatively new, there's a higher capital outlay for, for and the cost of extracting water for the district is higher because it's located underground. Well, it would seem to me that the citizens would like to know why is that?
Is that accurate, that other districts have higher rates also because we're relying on, well, water, as compared to Denver, for example, or lives primarily in reservoir water. to me, that's part of the disclosure. I think that would be helpful to the public. And. There's a comment in Mr. Nathan's report today about the monarch water line being completed.
but anticipation phase two of again next June. I thought we were in phase two. Is there another phase two or am I misunderstanding now?
Nathan:
so we there were two plan phases. So a plan for this year and next year we moved part of phase two up to this year. so effectively we integrated half of phase two into phase one, but the remainder is still called phase two in this plan.
For next year,
Steve:
just behalf of all those anonymous citizens who are tired of driving through Daniel's Park, I was wondering when monarch was going to be open. Somebody had raised their hand,
Jana:
I did. Steve. Also, this city of Castle Pines has various phases for it as well. And so they're finishing up phase three, so that might be a confusing part of we're on phase two.
They're on phase three. That might be part of it. So
Steve:
that was that was it for me. Thank you. Thanks very much.
Jason:
All right. Thank you. do we have anybody else online or with us? I would like to speak.
Go ahead. Please state your name and address. Please.
Sorry. Your mic is the look. It looks like the guy talking.
Roberta Allen, Castle Pines Resident:
Up. Hello? Roberta Allen, 5703 Jasper Point. Circle Daniels Gate neighborhood. This is just real quick. just to give you a citizens perspective of your rate proposed rate hike, in 2019, I was living in Centennial. My water bill. these are all October dates. All of them are
October date. So in Centennial, my last bill was $95. I had a big yard, a big, English garden full of roses, and I was a huge yard. And it cost me $95. the following year, I moved here, and the cost was, $160 the following year. Same size yard. Maybe, maybe a little smaller here than there, but relatively the same 2021 it went up to $220, 2022 was $173, 2023 was $189 and 2024.
it was 276 because we had a longer season than usual. So when you say rate increase, I've kind of had one every single year. and maybe you guys do rate increases every single year. But mine has been every single year. And we've done a lot of landscaping that removed regular watering. we did landscaping that didn't require water, so we reduced.
But every year my bill goes up a lot. And now you want another rate increase. And I just would like it very clear why you're getting a lot of increase each year. From me. Thank you.
Nathan:
Yep. Just for context. Thank you. Yeah. We have not raised rates, at all since 2021 was last increase. So the increases that you're seeing in your bill would be entirely usage driven.
we do have some programs, available, especially for conservation and landscaping management that are free and available.
Roberta off-mic:
increase a significant part of our yard and our.
Nathan:
Yeah, yeah. I absolutely encourage you to contact our office. We can look at your usage year over year and we'll go through it.
Roberta off-mic:
I'm just saying this is what my neighbor presented to, you know, this is what we're discussing.
You know, when we're out wondering what we're all discussing.
Jason:
Okay. Thank you. Do we have anybody else that would like to speak?
Terri Wiebold, Owner, Publisher, Castle Pines Connection:
Hi. Thank you. my name is Terry Wiebold. I'm the publisher of the Castle Pines connection. The address is 7437 Village Square Drive, suite 220, Castle Pines. I brought with me today Molly Rosenmeyer. She's a graphic designer that works with the Castle Pines connection. She is also the liaison with district manager, Travis, Nathan
Travis. Sorry. and so I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you, to thank the board for the continued partnership with the Castle Pines connection. it really shows this board's commitment to the community and to transparency and your willingness to communicate openly with the public. not necessarily just publishing something in some random paper or a record somewhere where nobody might necessarily see it.
So we really do appreciate the continued partnership. and that that extended level of transparency that you're showing with the community as a business who's been operating here for 16 years now, gone through a lot of different boards, worked with a lot of different people. We really appreciate our relationship, with, with Nathan and, the work that that you all are doing to, like I said, communicate what's happening to the community.
We brought a little something for you, for year end and, Molly, if you wanted to say something,
Describer:
Terri leaves the podium and grabs a bag of swag and passes them out to the board members while Molly speaks.
Molly Rosenmeyer, Graphic Designer, Castle Pines Connection:
I just want to say thank you for the continued partnership. I think the, ads in the connection and working with Nathan, you know, continued communication, awareness to the community is always a good thing. So thank you.
Terri off-mic:
Or somebody in the office for this?
Board Member Leah Enquist:
I'm not there in person, obviously, but I just wanted to say thank you. That is so very thoughtful of you.
Terri starting off-mic:
We love it being televised. I love that there's access to the everything that you're doing as an independent news source. that's really important to us. So thank you. And again, Molly's the one that can can make those last minute changes work on things.
in the 11th hour, when do we need to change it? Two days before we go to press. So thank you for your time. And thank you for your service to the community.
Jason:
Thank you very much.
Tera:
Thank you. And thank you for, I know that we had already approved our ad, and then when we had our budget meeting on Wednesday, we totally pivoted on you.
And that was past deadline. I think that's what your that's what you're referring to. But it is really important in communicating especially, you know, something like a rate increase. So thank you for meeting that working Nate. You too. And all of you working to make that happen.
Jason:
Yes. Thank you very much. okay. anybody else online or in person that would like to speak?
All right. Hearing and seeing none. We'll go ahead and close out the public comment period. And, Nathan, we don't have a communications director tonight. correct.
Nathan:
Yeah. Bailey, sent me a text at a little bit after 12 today, letting me know that her travel plans had changed and that you wouldn't be able to make the meeting tonight.
one thing I would like to, see if we can get done. I haven't had a chance to to review this. I was having some technical difficulties with my computer today. but we did talk about setting a open house in January, so Bailey did send over an email that kind of included a general outline for that, asking us to, select a date for that.
Tera:
So she mentioned a Tuesday would work, but proposed a Sunday.
Nathan:
Your guess is as good as mine. There.
Tera:
And also, I'm not sure about, putting posters. Douglas County Library does get a lot of traffic, but the chamber office, that doesn't. I'm not really sure what that would do, but do. Are we looking for two dates, a weekend date for the people that work, and a we're a weekday?
Nathan:
I think that would ultimately be up to the board. I think that, picking, probably a single day would be my preference, but one that is more easily accessible. if we're looking at that first part of January, Saturday, and I'm not even sure why the Tuesday recommendation is in there. but I think if we want community members to show up, my inclination is probably midday on a weekend, early afternoon.
Leah:
And, Nathan, can you guys hear me? Okay, okay. I, I second your recommendation to have a single session. I, I'm not sure how broad attendance is going to be anyways, but sometimes when you have separate sessions, you, you miss, like, the questions that are in one and you miss the questions that are in the other. So I think having like a single session that we can record and make available, that would be my recommendation.
Tera:
Okay. So looking at the calendar, the seventh or 14th are actually Tuesdays.
Board Member James Mulvey:
Okay. Now no problem in and I Nathan, I'm just going to ask you to kind of read it into the record, the event objective. We talking about date and times, but, only because one of the residents, Mr. Dawes, brought it, brought up a question with it.
you know that directly, you know, touches on this issue. So I just wonder if you just read in the event objective and then maybe distribute, you know, just kind of go into that for a second.
Nathan:
yeah. So the event objective is to inform the public about the upcoming water rate increase, provide transparency, about transparency, about its necessity, and gather feedback or address concerns.
Leah:
And then I think we had talked about potentially collecting or giving residents an opportunity to submit any questions or concerns ahead of time, especially if they're not able to make the session. Is that something that we're still planning on doing? Yes, I would, I would encourage that.
Nathan:
yeah. And Bailey does have that outlined in our plan. I apologize, Lee, I forgot you were going to be remote.
So I'll forward that email to you. So you have the, if I didn't already, but so you have the outline. Okay. Thank you.
Tera:
So board, are you feeling strongly about earlier like January 7th or 14th on a Tuesday
Jason:
for me either night works. I don't know the difference between the two. Does anybody have any conflicts? So I guess start with the seventh and then,
Jana:
and then to add to that, I actually support a Tuesday over a weekend.
Okay. but again, that's I'm only one person, so it's Tuesday.
Jason:
Tuesday works for me as well. So, yeah. So I guess we'll set it right now for Sunday or Sunday. Tuesday, January 7th at, 530 to 7:30 p.m..
Nathan:
Okay. do can we with that, does the, I relic of the wrong month here? would the 14th work as an alternative backup date?
I do need to verify with the city that the space is available.
Jason:
Yeah, I think that's reasonable,
Tera:
because our meetings are on. I think the second and fourth Tuesdays, so we might have to do it, maybe the third, but yeah, depending on the schedule, you know,
Nathan:
it's it's really just making sure that no community member or anybody has reserved this physical space.
Tera:
Right. But it also be nice not to coincide with their council meeting. Yep. Good point.
Jason:
Okay, great. We'll go ahead and, schedule that then. Same body. Else have any questions over the other information that, Bailey provided? Yeah. Hearing none I'll go ahead and, close out the communication director's report, and then we can move on to the finance director's report.
Looks like we have Phyllis with us.
Describer:
Phyllis Brown is on Zoom.
Phyllis Brown, Community Resource Services of Colorado (CRS):
Hello? Hello. Yes, Andrea is going to give you the report since she's in person. So.
Jason:
Perfect. Thank you.
Describer:
Andrea Manson is at the podium onsite.
Andrea Manion, Community Resource Services of Colorado (CRS):
Good evening. So we need to ratify claims for payment, including check numbers 28905 through 28960 and electronic payments issued from October 23rd through November 20th. we have total October expenditures of $1,391,458.20 in total. On November, expenditures of $490,033.75, for a total of $1,881,491.95.
Jason:
I'll go ahead and make a motion to ratify the claims as described.
Board Voting All Speak:
Second. Great, great. Having a second. Let's move to vote. Jim. Approve. Jerry I Jana approve. Leah approve. And I approve as well. So, that will, pass unanimously.
Andrea:
Starting on page 26 of your packets, we have total Douglas County tax revenues received through October, totaling $1,143,974.91, which is 99.95% of the budgeted property taxes received year to date. bill to water usage in the month of October was $72,155,000 17.3%, increase from water usage in October of 2023, and we have billed sewer usage was $18,582,109 for October 2024, verses $19,007 19 million, excuse me, 783,451 for October of 2023, which is a 6.07% decrease in total water and sewer revenues for the month of October was $859,072, versus $770,913 from October 23rd, which is 11.44% increase.
And then on page seven, we just have a little summary of your year to date accounts receivable and revenues, so you can see the totals there, as well as your year to date disbursements. Summary. page 28, you have your total cash balance and the bank accounts, which I'll go over in the financials more in depth, which we do have for you tonight starting on page 47.
So on page 47, we have your statement of revenues and expenditures versus your budget for the Water Enterprise Fund. You can see the first column is from the 2023 audit. the next column over is your total 2024 adopted budget. And then you have your unaudited actuals through the end of October. And then you also have your budget through the end of October.
So you can that variance column is a difference between your actuals through or the end of October versus what's the budgeted through the end of October. So you'll see total water operating revenues of $4,022,894, which is actually above our budgeted amount. So we're looking good there. and that's mostly due to you can see water service charges are a little bit higher than what we budgeted.
the golf course, water delivery revenues are a little higher than we budgeted for. And then also we had water late fees, which weren't budgeted. So those are the biggest variances there. Does anyone have any questions on those revenues? Okay. Next we have the water operating expenses. total through October $229,252. So we're under budget. both through October and our total budget there.
Leah:
And what page are we on? 47. Thank you.
Andrea:
And then underneath that, we have all your other expenses here. and on page 48, you can see your total expenditures of $4,188,751 for, everything.
Tera:
So can we hang on one second? Sure. Nate, back on the first page as I'm looking at those revenues and, like the water service charges,
Our what? Were.
we're a little bit over what we thought. Okay. Right. Never-mind.
Andrea:
Yeah on the revenues total. We're over budgeted. So. That's good.
Tera:
I'm good. Thanks.
Andrea:
And also, just to let you know, we can refine and revise as we go. So if you guys would prefer to see maybe, like, a percentage of the changes or, something to help you read this a little more, definitely let us know. I know it's a little hard because you have so many accounts, so it's very large and lots of numbers.
Leah:
the this walkthrough was really helpful for me, and especially letting us know what page you're on so it's easier to, to follow through. I don't know if this is like a reasonable request or doable, but I'm wondering if it would be helpful to the other board members to just have something up above kind of this report out with any like, for lack of a better term.
Key takeaways. So, you know, just like, hey, things that you would want to draw attention to right? Each sections and kind of preface that. Right.
Andrea:
Yeah. We plan to have these every month for you. at the meetings going forward. So, I know tonight you're seeing it for the first time. So I just want to kind of describe what the columns and everything looks like.
And then going forward, you can just let me know what's important to you guys for me to point out to you every meeting. Yeah. I think this is probably.
Phyllis:
Oh, this is Phyllis. We could also we we're working on the budget diligently to get that out to you guys. But the plan would be to have a summary, that would explain any significant variances and a recap that would be helpful.
We we have done that, for lots of our clients. So that's next on the list. Yes.
Leah:
Would be super helpful. Yeah. For me. Thank you.
Andrea:
Okay. And then page 48, and kind of in the middle of the page, you can see all the total expenditures, and that equals $4,188,751. Now you will see that is over budget a little bit.
but I wanted to point out that last line item, the parks, trails and open space IGA expenses of 252,000. So we did not originally have that budgeted since we owed a little more to the city during that transfer. So that's, the difference basically for going over budget there. question. I'm sorry. No. No question. And then the water non-operating revenues.
So these are going to be like all your property taxes, specific ownership, taxes, interest. we're also pretty above budget there. And that's mostly due to the interest earnings. You'll see we have over 2 million that we've earned and interest. And we budgeted 250,000. So that's the big reason why we are over budget on those revenues.
Leah:
And I'm sorry we on page 48.
Andrea:
Yes in the middle of the page okay. Thank you. Water Non-operating revenues. Okay. Thank you. And then underneath that you can see your water non-operating expenses, which is going to be, you know a lot of your projects depreciation and things like that. So you will see total non-operating expenses. $5,489,257. So we are under budget there as well through October, and for the entire year.
Does anyone have any questions on the water fund?
Jason:
No, I don't think so at this time.
Andrea:
Okay. And then your wastewater fund, which starts on page 50, these are going to be all your wastewater account. So it's going to look very similar to your, your water fund. you can see total wastewater operating revenues through the end of October are $1,889,546.
And we are also over-budget there as well. Also,
Through October, at least not through the whole year. And then we have the total salary and benefits, $123,906. So which we're also under budget there. Yes.
Tera:
So, so would we be over in the wastewater revenues. Why would those be higher than anticipated. Yep.
Nathan:
Sorry I thought I heard somebody jump in online.
Leah:
Oh, I was actually going to ask a pretty similar question to Tera. So to make sure I understand, like, it looks like we're under for our expenses, but over for our revenues, at least for wastewater. Am I understanding that correctly?
Nathan:
Correct. Yeah. So when we the wastewater rates are set, they're a fixed rate that goes throughout the year.
But even when we're doing so like now when we're planning our budget or we're going through the rate study, we're projecting those out, that's before those rates have been set. So in the I think it's December, January and February, we take an aggregate average. And so, you know, it could be a number of things, higher wintertime consumption over those three months, more anticipated units coming online.
and we did have quite a few, accounts get added this year as we closed out, finished building out Legae and added a bunch of townhomes and those kinds of things, there are large meters that also come with higher wastewater fees and charges. Thank you.
Leah:
Okay. And then I was asking is, you know, to Mrs. Dawes' point around the the rate increases.
I'm just like, it feels like this could be an area where maybe there's some concerns or objections if our operating costs are actually lower than budgeted and our revenues are higher than anticipated.
Nathan:
Yeah. And those are those. So those are things that we looked at during the rate study. And we'll certainly look at an even more in depth, when we do the full cost of service study.
But we're really relying on historical data to give us a good average point to plan. So we look at kind of the average that we see over the past few years. We put that in there. And for our projected budget. And then there are a lot of external factors that occur throughout the year, especially on the water side.
weather has a huge impact on whether or not we overshoot or undershoot a budget. So we we conservatively aim for a midpoint. And then after that. Forces are what they are.
Leah:
If Bailey were here, I would tell her that seems like a good FAQ
Nathan:
add it to my list of things to communicate to her, but I agree.
Andrea:
Right then on page 50 for that.
Leah:
Oh, sorry. I was just saying thank you to Nathan for that. Sorry.
Describer:
On Screen.
Castle Pines North Metropolitan District
WASTEWATER ENTERPRISE FUND
Statement of Revenues and Expenditures with Budgets
Unaudited. Andrea describes it.
Andrea:
on page 51, you can see, a total expenditures of $2,091,899. And we are over budget there again because of the parks, trails and open space idea expenses. We had a few more there, 231,000. So, that that's why we're over budget there because we didn't have that budgeted for, wastewater non-operating income.
The taxes, the revenue is $1,377,971. And again, we are over because of a lot more interest. We got $230,779 in interest, as opposed to a 50,000 that we budgeted. And then your non-operating expenses, we only have 625,288. So, very under budget there as well.
Nathan:
I do have a question on the,
Kind of the the large gap that seems to exist in what we budgeted for on both sides. So, like, if we're, if we're looking at interest payments, I'd, I mean, we know it seems to me we we know how much money we have in our accounts. We know what interest those generate. Why are we off by almost orders of magnitude there?
I mean, that's that's a pretty significant difference on both the water and wastewater side.
Andrea:
Well, I think usually we budget lower because a lot of that interest is coming from the treasurer with property tax as well. So the budgeted amount is basically the bank amount. And then we don't try to estimate, you know, what we're getting from the treasurer as far as interest.
Phyllis:
I do see that it was under budget. It should have been higher last year for our budget. Looking at our actual versus what was budgeted. And so we're looking at that this year when we're doing our 25 budget, we're aligning that better.
Nathan:
Okay. Yeah. So that was my next question. So we have accounted for more anticipated interest revenue for the 2025 budget year already.
Phyllis:
I believe so. Okay.
Tera:
And Nate why is I'm sure there's reason. But remind me why the lift station renovation is not spent. We had a high. We don't almost a $3 million budget.
Nathan:
yeah, a lot of that just comes down to timing. So we've been carrying that large kind of phase one budget. we also had it in for 2023, and it's really just a function of like how long it was going to take us to actually get these designs, get them approved by the state, and then be able to move forward with construction.
And so, we put those in, both in 23 and 24, just in case those projects fast tracked or we got something that we could get moving on more quickly. moving into 2025, the budget numbers are, are much more, we're going to spend them. So, I mean, we've got bid packages planned and ready to go, as soon as we get approval.
Andrea:
And then page 52 is just the conservation trust fund. So you kind of see whatever comes in, then goes out because we're transferring that to the city. and I'm currently working with DOLA to get them to send those payments directly to the city, so we don't have to transfer those anymore.
Describer:
On screen.
CASTLE PINES NORTH METROPOLITAN DISTRICT
CASH POSITION
Adjusted as of November 21, 2024
Year to Date as of October 31, 2024
Unaudited. Andrea describes.
Andrea:
And then page 53 is your cash position. So this shows the actual cash in your all of your bank accounts, for the period. And then underneath is kind of your current period activity through November thus far. So your current payables that will be coming out, your current deposits and property taxes received in November.
Are there any other questions?
Jason:
I don't have any other questions. Does any of the other board have any questions? Questions? Hearing none. I'll go ahead and close out. the finance director's report. Thank you very much.
Andrea:
And CRS does have gifts for you. So I'll give you the those after the meeting.
Jason:
Okay. Thank you very much. and now we're going to move on to item number nine, consideration of a resolution delegating authority to the district manager and adopting financial controls.
This is page 54 of the packet.
Describer:
On screen.
A RESOLUTION
DELEGATING AUTHORITY TO THE DISTRICT MANAGER
AND ADOPTING FINANCIAL CONTROLS. DRAFT.
Leah:
Jason, I would like to give some context behind this document, if I may.
Jason:
Yes, please feel free.
Leah:
and Kim, I would, in the interest of transparency, for those who are attending, and for those who are not, Kim, I would love for these points to be captured in the meeting notes.
So as part of the annual budgeting process, in one of our study sessions, I want to say it was maybe a couple of months ago, Nathan had a request to hire six headcount. and I was really surprised, for a few reasons. Number one, and that's a lot of people to hire at once. and at that time, we weren't it wasn't solidified.
What positions those would even be for. and number two, as somebody who ran for the board, to help facilitate either like streamline learning, and inclusion, beefing out our metro district to me did not seem like the right long term strategy. so so that was one piece. the second piece is, you know, we inherited aging infrastructure, deferred maintenance.
And so it is it is a district. We've really prioritized, making some capital improvements. And those come with some pretty significant costs. I've been concerned as a board member that for many of those projects or expenditures, haven't gotten the information that I've needed in order to make an educated decision. and that I believe was was referenced in the packet, especially around, you know, meeting notes where both director Mulvey and I have requested, you know, certain types of information and, you know, still haven't really gotten what we're looking for.
So thinking about where we want to go long term, I don't feel like the board has been able to pivot to that strategic thinking yet. Like we've we've been in triage mode and and at some point, you know, I think we need to move out of that triage mode. And we need to be strategic in our long term planning for what is our goal as a district, and how are the decisions that we're making today, supporting that goal?
And I don't feel like we're there yet. All that to say, You know, share those concerns with the board. and the output, to attempt to address those concerns with this document. And, and when I think about this document, I think about it more in terms of providing a layer, of accountability and oversight, both in terms of our capital spend projects, but also in terms of, you know, our hiring, you know, our contractors or any you know, full time employees.
And, and rather than say, sure, we can hire two people with this document, allows the board to do is prompt the district manager to be thoughtful about his request to the board. And so, for example, coming to the board with, a role, a job description, a salary range and then getting approval, same with capital projects.
What is the rationale behind the capital project? What are other alternatives? Why do I believe this is the right alternative? These are the types of presentations and reasonings that I would expect to be done just automatically. But but they haven't been so again, this document was meant to address what I see is that gap. so that said, there are a few things in here.
For example, you know, where there would be dollar amounts. They're currently blank. So my hope is that as a as a board and together with Nathan, we can have a discussion around those. And then, you know, there are some things today that as written, I think could slow down processes. and what I would say, Nathan, is that's a balance.
the goal is not to slow down processes or to be a roadblock. so an areas where we think that might be a concern, let's talk through it, because, again, the goal is to provide a layer of oversight and accountability, which I see is one of our core responsibilities as a board. That's all I have to say.
Thank you.
Jason:
Thanks. Leah. Kim, do you want to go over this document with us?
Legal Counsel Kim Seter:
Certainly. this draft's been around for, I think, about a month and a half now. what we did is we went ahead and just tried to determine areas in which, are you had expressed desires to have Nathan bring justifications to you. So, at the bottom of the first page, we've got budgeted expenditures.
And the idea there was to to indicate that just because something's in the budget doesn't mean that it can be spent. So the dollar amount where the blank goes says district manager's authorized to enter into contracts for services and incur expenses and satisfy obligations that will not exceed, when aggregated, the sum of blank dollars. Again, this where you make that number, the more Nathan, more work.
Nathan is going to have to do paperwork coming back to you. The larger you make that number, the less you're going to get. some input into that.
Jason:
Do you have input into what you think that dollar figure should be?
Kim:
I don't really have probably Nathan would be. Nathan and Phyllis may be the best to tell you that, I have some other districts that have controls like this, and it's it's all over the board in smaller districts, it's $25,000, larger districts, it's 130, 200,000.
Tera:
Okay. I think that would be based on budget size. So I don't know what the $25,000 is because the director Enquist point, the point is to provide some more, insight and accountability, but it's not to handicapped the district manager so that he can't get any work done because he can't do anything without the board. So I guess Phyllis and Nate.
Could start by throwing out a number.
Nathan:
Yeah. So I have done a little bit of, bird dogging on this, just contacting other districts. The, kind of average mid point, that I've seen and would be comfortable with is, an authorization that sits around $60,000, but then that comes with a requirement that any check over $20,000 is countersigned by a designated board representative representative.
So, yeah,
Leah:
And Jana, I would be curious. do you have any insight into I do see a number.
Jana:
I did a little bit of research just from some other agencies, and I'll just share it with the board. okay. So what I found is a comparable purchasing guideline is under 25,000. No board involvement whatever whatsoever. I mean, but then, what for the 25,000 to 50,000?
It's just, it's on the weekly report for the council, for the city of Aurora. And so in that case, that would just be like an email, like an alert. So, 25 to 50,000 and then the 50,000 to $2 million mark. So here we're talking about capital projects. If it has three bids then it just goes on the weekly report.
And then anything over 2 million has to go to full board council presentation. So that 2 million is that that number that if you, that anything over that has to be approved by the board. But the 50 to 2,000,000, 3 bids budgeted, it's just an alert. So I don't know, just food for thought, guys.
Leah:
Jana can I ask a, clarifying question about the weekly report?
So it's the weekly report. More of like a push only notification, just meaning like here it is for your FYI. Or is it meant to be like reactive where it's like I'm letting you know, but if you have any concerns, like there's a process for
Jana:
I wanna ask Tera, does the City of Castle Pines have a weekly report. So the weekly report that I recall the city was the city manager's report to keep the council updated.
But, if this is if I'm understanding the question correctly, I don't think we could do this via email because that's basically, conducting. Kim, is that conducting business out outside of, public? I mean, our business is supposed to be conducted in the public. So if we were trying to approve things via email, I see that as problematic.
Jana:
Yeah. oh. I didn't think it would be an approval process. It was an alert. but it was just, it is. Okay. And then, again, from my experience, if a as a council member, a board member has concerns for an item on the weekly report, they can pull it and say, we'd like to discuss this at the formal meeting and then so but everything else just goes through.
There's no approval process.
Kim:
So Tera, you would I would view that as this is your approval. But if something is of concern then you're going to pull it back up.
Leah:
And would we be able to do that to Tera's point
Tera:
as long as we can. Yeah. Do that via email without creating any Sunshine Law concerns. Yeah. How would we pull that out?
Just reply, don't reply to all and only reply to what you want to pull and then yeah, okay. Any one of you could pull because we don't meet weekly. So yeah. Okay.
Jana:
To add to that, we're not discussing them now. You know that, we're not discussing any of these now, so I don't know. I don't have a good setting up for that.
Tera:
You know, I just want to make sure that we weren't approving or how we were doing that. But I think I'm clear and I'm good. And I'm sorry if I interrupted you.
Leah:
Oh, no. Thank you. it was for me. It was more clarification, and maybe this is more tactical, but if I'm understanding this correctly, if we were to adopt something like this where there's a certain threshold.
sorry, where, where if we included it in this, you know, weekly report that we currently don't have. But let's say we have one in the future and one of us objects, we would share that objection, I'm guessing, with Nathan and Kim to be addressed in the next board meeting. And then anything else that didn't flag concern would just automatically pass.
Tera:
Correct. I was gonna say that was my understanding. Thank you for articulating that way.
Jason:
So if we go down this path of this, of doing it this way, we can pretty much get rid of ABC on this. on our document here. Yes. Okay.
Leah:
But I like I like anything streamline.
Tera:
I scream like, and I really do love that.
and your budget is for planning and budgeting purposes only, not an authorization to expend funds unless otherwise approved by the board, because there are so many organizations that work like once the budget is approved and it's approved and and you never see it again. So I like that
Leah:
I do too. And that was one of my concerns.
I think the impression that I was getting from, Nathan was that big because we signaled support for, you know, a handful of headcount, that it was just like in the books. Done. I can do it. and so just wanting to reiterate that that's not necessarily the case, that just because it's allocated as part of the approved budget, doesn't mean that it's approved for spending, in my understanding that correctly.Kim.
Kim:
Yes.
Tera:
So with the, the, that guide those perimeters that Director Crowe proposed, we're getting rid of underneath item one. We're getting rid of what a b c do we need?
Kim:
I think you want to keep D because that covers emergencies. so if there is an emergency, there's really no limit. Whatever it takes, as long as you're notified.
And then you need to be notified within 48 hours.
Nathan:
Yeah. specifically on the, I just want some clarification around, that last sentence, which expenditure shall be reported to the board within 48 hours? I do not know how much emergencies cost inside of 48 hours. if we've got a waterline break, break. I get a can.
We get a contractor out there? They start the repair. we generally don't see that invoice for as much as, like, 30 days, so. I mean, I can I can certainly give notifications when emergencies have happened and that those expenses are coming through. But I'm not going to have dollar amounts for you guys.
Jana:
I think that's appropriate.
Jason:
That's reasonable.
Yeah.
Leah:
I was going to ask. And yes, I also think that sounds, reasonable. Like would you have a sense of like a target range or just like, not even like that's not where we're at within those, you know, 48 plus hours.
Nathan:
that would be fairly situational. So if it's, standard, normal line break, I can tell you in asphalt it's somewhere around 25, $30,000.
If it's not a standard situation, it'd be, something I need to wait on to communicate.
Leah:
Yep. I don't know if that makes sense.
Tera:
And then we could leave E. as well, because that sounds like a completely different process. Approving a contract if we've approved and signed it.
Kim:
Yeah. And that was to provide for, anytime you approve a contract, then within it there are expenditures for chemicals and supplies.
You're approving that expenditure as well.
Tera:
Well, so then what the proposed guidelines that we've talked about for section one, I would say I'm on board with that. With the changes that we've discussed,
Jana:
do we typically get three bids for our capital?
Nathan:
yes. That's the target. So we'll we we have had times where we've thrown things out on net and not received the three bids, but yes, that's our target.
other thing for the board to note. we don't pay expenses weekly. We pay them biweekly. so that would probably be an easier cadence. in terms of reporting our expenses, we, we stack all our invoices, and then every other Wednesday or so, we, we go through and code them and send them out.
Tera:
Make sense?
Kim:
And then moving on to section two.
Tera:
Kim, I'm just sorry, one last question then, based on the clarification about the the, expenditures will be reported to the board within 48 hours. Do we need to change that language at all?
Kim:
Just, we'll just make it clear that the the fact of the emergency will be okay.
You'll be given notice of that entry. Yeah. On onto section two?
James:
Well, question on the emergency. when you call contract or any other line break because that seems to be the most common one that we call them with. how do you communicate an authorization number like you're authorized up to this amount?
Nathan:
currently we don't.
I mean, it's it's one of those things where we have to spend whatever we have to spend to get it brought back on line. so for a main break, for example, if we've got water coming out of the ground, it's really difficult for me to say, hey, you're authorized to spend, you know, $50,000. And then it pulls back.
There's a lot of things that can go wrong on those projects, with secondary breaks in charge systems, which can continue us to move forward. we do, I do, have our, our guys in the field and then as well, when I can when we get those invoices, when they come back across, I make sure that we go back in and make sure that the number of employees on site is reasonable, verify cut sizes, materials used.
So we do have a QAQC that we do on those before we approve them to make sure that, you know, there's nothing out of the ordinary. but I don't know how I'd be able to, accurately give them, an expenditure approval level at the beginning of an emergency. It's.
Leah:
Well, I think that's why, like for D, it's prefaced by saying, like, the limitations do not apply in those emergency situations for, you know, the the reason that Nathan just outlined or were you just curious about, like, the process today?
Jim.
James:
Yeah, I was really just curious about how we actually operate in the moment. I mean, I understand it's an emergent problem. And you, you pick up the phone, you call a contractor, you say, we just had a line break. What's the process that we currently use to define? I mean, is it a $50,000 or 100,000 or a $200,000 issue kind of thing?
And how do you communicate that with them? I mean, or is it just and I'm perfectly fine saying it's experience based rationale for what you think it's going to cost, because that seems to be the case. And I think I'm okay with that. But I would also find it useful if you put it, you know, say we get notified and you think it, you know, and again, we can't hold your feet to the fire, so to speak.
But you yeah. You gave them a budgetary estimate. You know, please don't exceed $100,000. That would give me another phone call kind of you that would how the how that process works. You know what I mean? Because other businesses operate in this manner, too, because stuff happens. But, you know, that's what I was saying. And Arthur is, you know, you tell your contractor you're authorized to proceed to 100 K, you know, and then you get to give me another phone call and we'll have a conversation.
I mean, I, I'm not saying that's the right way to go, but I'm just saying, how do we currently do that?
Nathan:
Yeah. So we we do have conversations. Any time there's going to be kind of a change. We've never had it in terms of dollars and cents like a kind of a financial limitation. but say for we'll keep it some of line break example.
if they need to expand the dig. So our standard, standard excavation is 12 by 12. If it needs to get bigger than that, they'll call me to make sure that that's okay. If there's a secondary line break, they'll call and give me a heads up if there's some sort of, like, unexpected material cost or, you know, out of the ordinary expense, I, we do keep that communication open throughout the event.
James:
And the follow up with that is this notification that's in D. would you be putting that level of, you know, what do you think that looks like going forward? If you communicate? Here's what happened. Here's what we think it might be, you know, could you and again I'm I'm hitting you with this. You a question based on, you know, probably no warning, but it's just again I'm trying to tease out how we think we go forward with this.
So, you know, we can we can knock this process out. You know, if we understand how you operate and what you think that might look like.
Nathan:
Yeah. Inside of that 40 hour notification, for an emergency, I could I can definitely I can't remember the term you used. experience experiential. What was it? It was good.
James:
in my business, require authorization to proceed.
So you call my steps up to 100 K or 50 K or something like that. You don't have to call me up to 50 K kind of thing.
Nathan:
Yeah, we could, but we could definitely add that that step in place, that wouldn't be that wouldn't be difficult to do. And then I can also communicate that to the board in terms of my, you know, what, I think this is ultimately going to cost based on experience.
I'll, I want to have a follow up conversation with some of the emergency contractors we use just to make sure that just to see if they have that kind of internal capability to know when they're going to hit those marks generally. But I would imagine, I would imagine so,
Jana:
do we ever consider, in this case of an emergency, do we do you have pre-qualified contractors that you call or you just call us?
Nathan:
Okay. Yeah. We have. So we have a kind of a phone tree of contractors.
Jana:
Would we ever consider having approved, time rates where you at least know for time and materials like you're not going to know what materials you need, but you are going to know the hourly rate of who's out there, like you're saying. And then you can say, I at least know for this level of staff, these are the rates we agreed to.
Yeah, just a thinking. Or maybe you guys already even do that. But that's something I've seen before.
Nathan:
Yeah, yeah. They send us I don't think I've got any control, especially on the emergency response side that don't like every January. Give me just a rate sheet for 2025.
Jana:
Perfect. That's what I think I'm used to, is an hourly rate based on what their position is.
And then you kind of know what you're going to get. And then you can get a time and materials invoice at the end to cover it. Yeah, that's something.
Jason:
Any other questions? I think we can move on to two now.
Describer:
On screen.
2. Board Project/Expenditure Approval Process. The District Manager shall present all
expenditure requests required to be approved to the Board at a work session to be
addressed at the next regular meeting. Expenditure/contract requests shall include:
a. A thorough description of the need and proposed purpose for the expenditure:
b. Alternative means to address the need;
c. Alternative proposals and/or pricing options and a discussion of the preferred option; and,
d. A discussion of whether and how proposed project/expenditure fits into the Board’s long term planning considerations.
Kim:
All right. Section two is is the, procedural paragraph. And this is the one where Nathan would bring before you the requests that he has to bring before you. And, the expenditure requests would be brought to a work session and then be addressed at the next board meeting.
And that request would include a description of the need or proposed purpose for the expenditure, alternative means of addressing the problem, alternative proposals or pricing options, and finally, a discussion of whether and how the proposed project expenditure fits into the board's long term planning considerations.
Nathan:
for my part in this, the only thing that I would ask is, under item B, alternative means to address the need or a justification for why there is only one alternative presented or there is no alternative presented I guess.
Jana:
And is section two just for what you have to present to the board. Meaning over the the $2 million if we adopt that number.
Yes. Okay. Then I think this looks good. And I think a justification would be perfect for a sole source or single source.
Leah:
I agree
Tera:
that I would, butI'm good with section two.
Kim:
Okay. section three, you had this. This all started, as Leah had mentioned, because of the, the hiring, the personnel issue. So that's been broken out separately. And, it requires the district manager to obtain prior approval from the board before hiring any new employees or independent contractors. The presentation would be, a request in a work session.
Again to be addressed at the regular meeting. And the presentation would include a thorough description of the need and proposed purpose for the hire, a proposed job description, description, salary and employment terms, and plan for advertising and seeking applicants. Alternative means to address the need, alternative proposals and or pricing options again, and a discussion of whether and how the the proposed project expenditure fits into the board's long term planning considerations.
And we should discuss those before we move to, B and C.
Jana:
I have no concerns with those.
Jason:
in the proposal for job description, salary and employment terms, maybe we could add, equipment that would need to be provided for a new employee.
Tera:
A second bullet point. Yeah.
Leah:
I think that's a good call out. I mean, I don't know if that's the best section for it, but, But, I like that you called that out. Jason.
Jason:
I all right, I think we can move on to be
Kim:
okay. b under that section. indicates that the the, manager is authorized to fill vacancies existing in existing staff positions without prior board approval. So if we already have, if you already have an employee in a position that employee leaves, you can go ahead and fill that vacancy as long as it doesn't exceed the previously approved budget for that position.
Jana:
I have no concern on the.
Jason:
Me either. I think we can move on to see.
Kim:
Okay. And I see the manager will submit applications to the board for consideration prior to any final job offer.
Tera:
And I have to say from a board perspective, that seems like an overreach. I mean, I don't believe that you guys show all your applications to any employees that you hire.
Jana:
Okay, Tera, to add to that, would it makes sorry that would it make sense for us to review a resume, resume an offer letter before it goes out or even on a weekly, on a weekly district manager meeting? So not waiting for a board meeting, but just so that we could verify the person meets the qualifications and that the offer fits in the range.
Tera:
Yeah. I'm saying at some point we, you know, boards are not supposed to get down into the day to day nitty gritty of it and hiring employees. And that is that is pretty common place where that's okay, that's your employees hiring. And it's up to them to make sure that that those requirements are met. That person can perform that job.
And if they can't, then you hold them them accountable for that work not getting done. But I think reaching down to that level is really, for me, it's problematic because it doesn't follow pretty standard guidelines between board responsibilities and employee responsibilities. And, Kim, you can
Kim:
and when you say, them. Tera you mean Nathan.
Tera:
Our board has one employee, which is the district manager, and the district manager should hire and be responsible for all the staff below that, except for your a dotted line for us.
So you're you're an employee and you're an employee. But every board I've been on city council operates the same way. And I think getting down into that low of a level is really not good practice.
Kim:
It's also very dangerous because board members can become advocates for employees, or the employees can come to think of you as an advocate for them and that and then they just go right around Nathan and
Jana:
okay, all valid points.
Thank you guys.
Kim:
So do we want to make any proposal to strike that one?
Jason:
I would like that stricken I don't think we just need to be given every application for every person that applies for
Nathan:
Jason real quickly is trying to jump in. Sorry, Leah.
Leah:
So, Tera, I hear you and I, I don't disagree with your points.
conceptually, where I'm coming from, around this and I don't know what the right balance is and, and maybe it's relooking at this in terms of how we could reword it. or maybe we end up striking it. I don't know, but I just wanted to offer my counterpoint, which is transparently I have concerns about the qualifications of our district manager.
My understanding is that Nathan did not undergo, a hiring process. in addition, when I pulled the job description for his role, he doesn't meet, a handful of the minimum requirements. We've also had a handful of what I would consider poor hires in terms of vendor management. so while I definitely don't want to micromanage as a board, I'm letting the citizens know and the board know that I have concerns about the qualifications of our district manager, who then is in charge of hiring, for the district to oversee our water and wastewater.
And so do I want to be reviewing resumes? No, but, Nathan, when you came to the board and you asked to hire six people all at once and didn't even really have a clear idea of who you wanted to hire, I'm just concerned that these are not well thought out decisions. and I think just making sure and I would also venture to guess that collectively, our board probably has more experience hiring than our district manager.
So again, it's not to micromanage and it's not to say like to to get into the details in the weeds. But I again, I see it more as that level of oversight, and accountability. and again, like I heard the board say, like, you know, if he hires the wrong person, we hold him accountable. I haven't seen that happen yet today with some of the acknowledged poor hires.
so I have concern there. And I think the other thing is, is, you know, it it doesn't necessarily have to be presented, at a board meeting. because that was another concern, too, is, you know, if I'm extending an offer to somebody and we just had a board meeting and I'm like, hold on, I have to get board approval, and the next board meeting is in a month.
that I think that would be a roadblock. And so I wasn't sure if there was a way to still keep that layer of accountability. but again, not be a roadblock.
Tera:
So there's a lot to unravel there. The, the issue that you talked about with the district manager, that's a separate issue. That's a contract that we have that's a that's a separate issue.
That's a contract. This is more of a policy I think, that we're trying to put in place. And again, for board governance and good board governance, this is not somewhere where, you know, boards typically get into looking at resumes. That's that's just not good board governance. So, I know I'm, I'm okay striking section C and I know, director Blankaert is I like to hear from the other two.
Jana:
Again, I don't disagree with anything Tera said. However, it didn't feel like an overreach to read an offer letter
Jason off-mic:
with single applications.
Jana:
Oh yeah, and I don't want to read applications. but to to review an offer letter with an associated resume. Great. Good. I don't want to meet them. I don't need to interview them. But to me, to know this person does look like what we're going for.
And this offer matches what we discussed and not even an approval. But maybe just a review. But, because I wouldn't want it to be a roadblock from a board meeting either.
Tera:
well, the other thing is, we can't again, we are elected officials. We work as one body together. We can't do stuff on email. We have to do it has to be in a board meeting or in a special meeting because we carry our business, which is our people's business, on in front of them.
So when, you know, there was also a reference of, oh, well, we can't wait for a board meeting, we have we have to or
Jana:
the alternative is not even being notified though, so it's either don't know
Leah:
So what I was going to say so Tera help me understand how that would be different than what we talked about. around kind of the capital piece where it's in that weekly communication and if there are no flags, then we move forward.
And the other thing that I would say to your point that this doesn't fall within our purview, I think fiscal responsibility is one of our primary responsibilities, and poor hires are going to be expensive for the district. so again, like for me, it's not to micromanage, but it's to provide a layer of accountability. for for what I believe is, is an inexperienced district manager.
Jana:
And to finish my point, I, I'm not at all supporting conducting business via email. The option is to be notified via email or not be notified at all. So that's why it doesn't feel like business that's being conducted. We're not approving. We're being, informed kind of on a weekly and as needed email. So no,
Tera:
I have no problem being informed.
I would yeah. I mean, every other board I'm on, we get weekly updates like the city manager sends the council an update. My executive directors and the board and update on these other things. So yeah, I'm okay. It just looked like this was written such that, the board was approving it says for consideration.
Leah:
so, Jana, first of all, I'm really sorry.
I've been there in person. It's hard to hear. It definitely did not mean to talk over you. So my apologies. Kim, is is there, like, any thoughts or suggestions? like, is there an option to potentially reword this so that it's striking that that balance?
Kim:
Yeah, I think the suggestion that you all kind of jointly made there would be to follow the same process as the other expenditures, where you get some kind of report, which could be the offer letter and resume and, that Nathan intends to hire this person and then you, any one of you has the opportunity to pull that back for the next board meeting to be discussed, that
that's what I feel comfortable with. Jim, I wanted to give you a chance to chime in here.
James:
Appreciate it. Yeah. I've been listening to everyone. and I think when we look at board approval for hiring personnel and the A section, I think if we do a good job in the section where we do a thorough description of the need, i.e., the business case for hiring an individual and that comes along with a good description of what they're going to be doing.
And that includes their their actual, you know, required capability or skills. and I could see C going away and maybe, the district manager, you know, feeding back a verification that he's reviewed job requirements, job description in the individuals that he plans to hire, meet these requirements or meet the majority of these requirements or something like that, would work for me.
and again, I don't want to be sitting there in a room review, reviewing resumes and listening to folks as they go through a job interview. But I would like some feedback from the district manager. It says here was the job description here with the requirements. And here's where they meet and don't meet and put that in an email.
They basically said, and here's the person I would like to hire. And that would just be a notification. and that to me is the intermediate ground. And I think we might be looking for I mean, obviously P please feel free to comment on that. But I think if we do a good job on the front end defining the job and the role and and Nathan's job is to review who he's hiring and why and verify that person met all these requirements.
And he says, here's a person I want to hire, and here's where they meet and here's where they don't meet. And he just goes through and ticks off those things. And I think that is an intermediate ground. I could kind of get behind.
Jason:
Kim. That's kind of what you done. Well, you kind of heard us saying to correct.
Kim:
Yes. Yeah, yeah. And we can try to word that into this paragraph.
Jason:
Okay. Great. We can do it. We're not not going to try it.
Kim:
We can do it. All right. number. Sorry. Item number four.
Leah:
All right. Just to to validate, are we saying, because I almost see it is like a two step process. Like, if I'm Nathan, I'm not interviewing unless I get approval to interview for that, like, for that position.
And so it seems like number two encapsulates the approval to, you know, like presenting the position and getting approval for that position. But then the next step is actually to hire and find somebody. So are we saying when Nathan signed somebody that he would like to hire like that information and that resume could go out, in a communication and if nobody has any concerns, then, you know, he's good to move forward. Correct.
Tera:
May I ask a question, Jim? it just. So we are having people who are applying for jobs, and then these resumes are going to go through all of us, and they're going to be just the candidate. Just the candidate because because I don't want to get into any HR or legal issues because somebody his employer may they may not have a form their employer that they're looking for a job and they won't give notice until they accept another job.
And we seem to be weeding into a really, careful an area where we really need to be thoughtful and careful because, you know, we're messing with people's livelihoods.
Kim:
Yeah. And I think that's something we can make sure that and Nathan probably knows this to to make sure that before he sends that out, he's certain that that's the person they want and then probably want to notify them that this is going out and I can't promise it'll stay.
You know, a secret, which is always the case when you're trying to hire somebody. There's a point at which it becomes an issue.
James:
I mean, in in my thought. You can sanitize this. I don't even need to know the person's name, age, sex. It is. Sanitize it to me. To me, it's a list of requirements. And in the that is driven by the job description.
And then the only thing I would need to see underneath that is this person meets this, this and this. It's a tick list or any other way you want to present that information. I don't need to know who it is, you know, and I totally agree, Jim. Yeah.
Leah:
Yep, I also agree. but then I was just thinking practically like.
And for what it's worth, I would be really surprised if there was an instance where one of us objected. I would, I think, like you said, Jennifer, if we're being really thoughtful about it on the front end, it's going to read a lot of that out. So it's more just I feel like it'd have to be pretty egregious.
And, and I don't think with a lot of these measures in place, I don't see something like that happening. But let's say it does. and somebody objects to the final applicant. and then so theoretically, then we would discuss that person and next board meeting, which could be a month away. And so just acknowledging that that would likely impact the hiring process.
And I don't think in that use case, there's there's there's any way around that, like if it well, and what if it's just one board member, right. Which is one person would we want to like throw a wrench into things for just one person. Like would we want to say it would have to be like, a majority of board members object to, you know, the candidate presented,
Kim:
then you're getting dangerously close in to making it close to making decisions as a board outside of a public meeting.
another thing you could do, we could put in here that any board member who has a strong objection can call an emergency meeting. So you're you're each authorized to do that by law, and you just reach out to the president and it would be set up as quickly as possible.
Leah:
Okay. Yeah. Again, my and my purpose in bringing that up is again, like not wanting to slow down the process.
And so just thinking through ahead of time, if we do have that scenario, which again, I feel like is is unlikely, with all the, you know, accountability that replacing on the front end, what are our options so that we're, you know, not potentially losing a good candidate because, you know, one board member has a strong objection, that I'd be curious to hear with, with the other board members would think about the ability to to call that special session.
Tera:
So, yeah, I mean, I think I would be okay with, job description and the case and let, let them manage that. I, I don't want to get too far into the weeds. So. Don't. The more we talk about it, the more it sounds like it's slowing things, slowing the process down.
Jason:
All right. Can we move on to item number four?
Leah:
I mean, do we have a consensus on that piece, though?
Jason:
I thought we did.
Jana:
I think the consensus is Kim is going to, revise it, and then we'll, review next meeting. Okay. Yeah.
Kim:
And I'll put in there the the ability to call an emergency meeting if, if, I mean, Nathan's going to have to tell you that we need to do it now and then somebody can call it if you want to do that.
Nathan:
Yeah. The, the only request or I guess question I have there. So in that process, does it make sense, to have some sort of time limit on the board response. So what I don't want to find to be in is a position where I send this out. And I've heard back from, you know, four out of five board members and I haven't heard anything from the fifth.
James:
It's a that's a good one. I mean, the way I usually do with contracts, it's if, if we don't pull it or we don't actually respond, you know, we do it with vendors to us and also other people 48 hours. And if you don't get back to the person 48 hours, you assume, as you know, you approve it or he sent to that.
Jason:
yeah. You can put in there. We have 48 hours to respond if we have a, a problem or an issue. I think that's completely reasonable. well spoken from Director Mulvey. You just got back from three weeks. Of a fabulous trip.
Leah:
No great call out. I would be very supportive of that.
Kim:
section four is really required by law.
So, we just threw that in there because you are responsible for any kind of real estate transactions. And then, six is just the way to amend this particular document and the effective date, and that's it.
Jason:
All right. So at the end of this, you're going to revise this, and we'll, bring this up for a vote on the at the next meeting.
Kim:
I'll revise it and you bring it up whenever you're ready. Okay. Fair enough. Thank you.
Leah:
If we approve the budget today, is this something that would need to be in place before the budget is approved?
Kim:
you could certainly give Nathan direction. That there aren't to be any significant expenditures until this has been finalized. that's also within your prerogative.
You'll want to define what that means, but I suspect there's not a lot that's going to happen that first couple weeks of January.
Leah:
well, I mean, reading through the packet, in the director's matters, I'm going off of memory here, but it look like Nathan, you wanted to kick off hiring kind of right at the start of the new year. and so I think some of those process pieces could be could be impacted by this. or am I mistaken on the time frame?
Nathan:
yeah. I have no intention of trying to force hires through before a policy is put in place, so I'm more than happy to wait. you know, the the financial document. This is something that I have been asking for for, well over a year now. So I think that getting that in place before we move in that direction would be helpful.
or reasonable not helpful.
Tera:
Right. And I think what Kim is suggesting is that we don't want to hold up approving our budget if we are comfortable with our budget, because we are legally bound to get that done. And so the motion might look something like approve the budget as in and put something about no, no hires can be done until the process is in place.
But to Nathan's point, he wasn't. He's not going to try to get anything done knowing that this policy is in progress. But, I would advocate that we don't, hold off approving our budget if we're comfortable with it just because that's, problematic from a, statute standpoint.
Leah:
100% in agreement, there.
Jason:
Okay. Let's go ahead and close out item number nine then.
And we'll wait to hear back from Kim next meeting and we'll open up item number ten, which is consideration of proposed 2025 rates and fees. good afternoon or good evening, Erik.
Erik Hegelson, Bartle Wells
Hi there.
Describer:
On Screen: From the Zoom call
2023 Water Operating Cost ($ per 1,000 Gallons) bar graph
CPNMD is compared to Castle Rock, CO Springs, Aurora, Fountain, & Roxborough water and sanitation district. Is the 2nd most costly at about $10 per 1,000 of use.
Jason:
So we kind of went through this at our study session. we'll start off. Does anybody have any questions about it?
All right. I'm not hearing any. Is there anything that's changed? There should be brought to our attention. Erik.
Erik:
No, no, the everything's the same. we began putting together that, sort of benchmarking, list. I think you have about five agencies, but are still working on refining that, on a dollar per, thousand gallons and, dollars per, I can I can also share my screen with, update, but the,
The survey, I think there was. I think that's, Let me just double check. There is one update to, Centennial. We found a, change in. I think one of their fees is actually bi monthly. I can share my screen it shows One minor change shift on the bottom. But then we started the,
comparison between, cities. Let me bring that up really quick. I don't know if you can see it or not. Yes. So this is, this is, several of the districts on Castle Pines Metro have combined water, sewer costs.
Jason:
So just, just one second. Eric, can we get that screen on this screen?
Nathan:
We don't have the ability, as I understand it, to put the zoom meeting on the projector.
Unless that is what Terrence is running around to get done
Jason:
up and see he's got us taken care of. I stand corrected just ask, you just have to ask.
Erik:
But, Yeah. So that was this is the only change as far as the rates. There's no substantive change. you know, just the high level objective of our recommendation was to, put the district in a position where you're looking at incremental changes going forward and not substantive, larger, jumps and rates and, you know, looking out at the ten year picture of, of coming in for, a soft landing, where you're stabilize your reserves and you bring your revenues, up above your, ongoing cash funded operating and, operating capital costs and, and debt service.
Describer:
On Screen: From the Zoom call
Water Financial Plan
Recommended annual rate revenue increases of 7% through 2028 and 6% thereafter
Key Assumptions
Rate revenue based on 540 million annual gallons demand baseline
8 new connection per year
$8.4M loan to sewer fund for lift station upgrades
Description of CPNMD Water Cash Flow ($Millions) bar and line graph as described:
O&M is a baseline of revenues starting in 2024 and projected from $5M a year to $7M a year by 2034
Rate Funded Capital started at about $14M and drops gradually to about $8M in 2028 and rises to about $10M by 2034.
Loan to Wastewater is the highest spend at $21M in 2025
Reserve cash starts at $40M in 2024 and drops to $19M in 2027 and stays at this level through 2034
Revenues Start at $10M in 2024 and fall to $7M in 2025 and slowly rise to $10M by 2034 along the same line of O&M plus Rate Funded Capital starting in 2028 through 2034.
Erik:
This is in the case of, sewer, with the debt service. so for both, both, both enterprises, really it's the costs are with capital are greater than your current current revenues and trying to to bring bring the the costs and the revenues together over time is gradually and evenly as possible, all while preserving district.
The district's reserves.
Tera:
Thank you. Eric. So, and I know that we did talk about this quite a bit on Wednesday night, but, if you are able to join us at the beginning of the meeting, we do have some of our, ratepayers and constituents here. And so just to, if you wouldn't mind, kind of reframing and read summarizing why, the study was done and why, a rate increase is necessary if you could just kind of summarize all that, like we haven't had an increase since 2021 and do all that briefly.
Would you do that?
Erik:
Absolutely. Do you want me to go through the slides again or just kind of give a high level summary to answer those those points?
Jason:
I think just a high level at this point.
Erik:
Okay, sure. yeah. So the district hasn't, raise rates since 2021. the cost to the district have gone up by about 24%.
that was one number we were trying to at the last meeting. I think we're looking at 21% of the overall inflation, but actually 24.4 for the actual district's costs. in addition, in addition to that, the enterprise, each enterprise is facing pretty significant, capital costs. especially the, the sewer enterprise, which has a large, lift station upgrade project and is going to need, a loan, I think in our, we're making the assumption there's an inter-fund loan from the water to the, sewer enterprise.
which would if that is the case, it would make the rate increase of substantially lower, which is the rate increase we're recommending. if you had to go out for outside financing, that would be, probably an additional 5 or 6% that you would need on the the wastewater side. so for the to to keep up with operating costs, which have been continually increasing and will continue to increase, at some level each year.
also to keep up with the, the, repair and replacement of the system, which, the district also, from what I understand, is a bit of catch up mode on, you know, we recommend getting, rate revenues moving, moving back, in the positive direction again and, so that they can stay predictable and sort of the, the rate increases are predictable and incremental, rather than getting to a point where you're in an emergency situation, you know, much larger increase, which is more painful for everyone.
And one one other note just responding to, earlier comments, we did review, the initial revenue projections, and we actually updated, provide input on those revenue projections that then went into the budget based on, current, historic water demands and, and, the number of customers, on the, on the sewer side.
Jana:
Erik, would you mind if I chimed in, too, please?
Okay. so to add to the rate increase, thank you so much for coming to discuss the, to discuss your concerns, Roberta, specifically. But for me, it's so important for our city to maintain good infrastructure. You know, we we want to have, you know, we want to have these as assets so that our homes are valuable and maintain, you know, maintain the the kind of what am I trying to say, not the status.
But we want to have a great city here. And so for me, I've seen construction costs continue to go up since 2020. Huge jumps in capital projects cost. And so the rate increase was thoughtful. We did not take it lightly, but we want to maintain solid, good infrastructure, clean pipes. You know, we want to be able to take care of our water and sewer.
And so for me, that was not something we took lightly. But really put a lot of thought into since we had not had a rate increase for since 2021. So, I appreciate you bringing up the questions. And Eric, thank you for doing the study. But for me, maintenance and taking care of what we have for our city is a really big deal.
Tera:
So thank you. And and I agree. And, fiscal responsibility is very important to me. This is, an enterprise. This is, like any other business. And we need to make sure that the revenues that we're bringing in are able to maintain our system. We're not, here to run into our reserves. I think people have seen that done a lot.
you know, I want to also share with you that our system has been, neglected for a very, very long time. And we've had boards that have made decisions that to not do rate increases for whatever reason and, and make those decisions. And we just happened to be the ones that are sitting here and, are the people elected to do your business right here and right now, we're, we're we're having to make these decisions that we think are in the best interest of everyone.
We we live here, we own our homes here. We're invested in here. We want our homes to have value. We want to have good, clean drinking water and renewable water. And and we are in this with you. We feel your pain. We wouldn't, take on something like this unless we really had been through, decision making process progress, a process and a discussion and making sure that this we believe that this is the right thing for for now and for sustainability for the future.
So we absolutely hear your concerns. We appreciate that you take the time to read all the documentation and that you come, and I hope anyone who reviews reviews this later is listening knows it. Yes, absolutely. We we understand the gravity of the situation, but this is a this is a system that does need to be upgraded and maintained and to deliver water to our homes and, and for our homes have value.
So thank you for your time and attention.
Jason:
Thank you. Very well, sir. Jana and Tera, Kim. Go ahead. Nathan.
Nathan:
yeah. Just real quickly, I wanted to, share, especially since we have residents here. at least part of the language that's going on in the connection and will also be included in the upcoming coming bills, billing insert.
So since our and Eric covered a little bit of this, but since our last rate adjustment in 2021, we've experienced a 24.4% increase in operational costs due to inflation. In early 2022, we reduced rates by eliminating a fixed monthly $15 renewable water fee to address to address rising costs and fund critical infrastructure projects, we are implementing a 7% increase in our water service rates and an 8% increase in our wastewater service rates, effective January 1st, 2025.
This adjustment equates to an average monthly bill increase for an in district, single family residential customer of $9.90. That's, $6.48 for water and $3.42 for sewer. This is based on a customer with a three quarter inch water meter, which is the vast majority of our residents, water usage of 10,000 gallons a month and a sewer bill based on an average winter water use of 5000 gallons.
so something worth noting is that even with the changes and the rate increase, residents will still be paying less on average than they were at the beginning of 2022.
Jana:
Excellent. Thank you. Nathan.
Jason:
Yes. And part of that was, we stopped collecting a $15, renewable water fee back in 2022. and so this kind of just catches us, catches us up to where we would be if we hadn't done that.
Kim, do we need to make a motion here or what's our,
Kim:
you've satisfied all the legal requirements that have to be satisfied before voting on a fee increase. So if you wish to do that, you could do that now or at the next board meeting. It's up to you.
Leah:
Can I make a quick comment? for the board and for those in attendance in the room?
I just want to say I, I echo and I support, both. What director Krell and Director Radcliffe have shared. and in addition, is part of my own due diligence, you know, just as a, as a citizen and a board member, you know, in my conversations with surrounding districts, this is pretty common. and the fact that we haven't raised rates in the last couple of years, I would say like, that's that's the outlier.
and I would say that piece is significant. and so that made me feel better. you know, knowing that, you know, not raising rates for that long is, is kind of an outlier. And the rates that we are, the rate increase that we did propose, is also not as high as some of our, our neighboring districts.
And, you know, I certainly feel like if we were trying to keep up with inflation and maintain our systems that like our rate increases, I was actually surprised they weren't higher. so anyways, I just I just wanted to share that that feedback. with any citizens in attendance as well.
Jason:
Thank you. Leah, I think as a board, we're probably ready to vote on this.
Board Voting All Speak:
so item ten. So, I'll make a motion to, approve the, proposed 2025 rates and fees adjustment, and I'll second that. And having a second, we'll move to vote. Jim, a reluctant I Tera I Jen I Leah a practical I and although I as well so that motion carries unanimously we'll go ahead and close out that section.
Thank you very much, Erik, for all your hard work on that. and we will go to our next item. Item number 11, the presentation of public hearing, a proposed 2025 budget.
Nathan:
No. So before we open the public hearing on the 2025 budget, I did want to can you, highlight a couple,
well, one small change and then, also follow up on some requested information, and we'll get my screen pulled up here.
Describer:
On screen. VANCO Exchange Invoice
INVOICE FOR THE MONTH OF: October 2024 Invoice Number: 00014864440
Exchange - Gateway ES22087TP-139 Castle Pines North Metropolitan District
Items Charged Quantity Rate Total Charges
Items Charged Transaction Fee Quantity 737 Rate 0.150 Total Charges 110.55
Items Charged Program Fee Quantity 1 Rate 40.000 Total Charges 40.00
Exchange - Gateway Total: 150.55
INVOICE TOTAL: 150.55
INVOICE WILL BE SETTLED ELECTRONICALLY ON 11/15/2024
Then Nathan moves to the CPNMD General Ledger Report which is a multipage listings of Debit amounts and he references several pages depending upon the subject of discussion. See the board packer for more detailed descriptions.
Nathan:
so we we did amend the budget to include a general fund at Kim's suggestion. so that has been taken care of. And then the board had also asked for some follow up information, specifically relating to the bank fees. And so Andrea was able to provide those. this is the, Vanco the most recent Vanco invoice.
Vanco is I understand it is the company that does all of our payment processing that is not credit card fee. So this this comes through, like, you know, online auto bill transactions, all of those things are run through, through Vanco. And so that was a large part of it. Andrea, did you send let me see here.
Nathan:
And there. I'm sorry. Is so this is in relation to a change in the budget?
Leah:
no, I apologize. So these these first couple are just follow up information in, letting you know what is in specific line items. And so this is specifically related to, the line item that was, was previously labeled as credit card fees has now been changed to bank fees.
and then there's just included breakdown of what those all of those fees are. and I'm sure Andrea could provide more detailed information if you guys have any further questions around those.
Jason:
All right. well, are these fees typical? $3,000 a month in bank fees?
Molly Janzen, Accountant:
yeah, they seem high to me. So I know you switched to Vanco in April of 2024, so before I think they are even higher. And then we got this new vendor, Vanco, and they've been a lot lower every month. so the vanco fees are normally around $150 a month.
the largest fees are coming from the Centennial Bank, the citywide bank. So I'm not sure. Do you the city provide your credit card payments?
Through that. Do you know Nathan,
Nathan:
the citywide provide? I'm sorry. Does citywide provide our credit card payments? I don't understand the question.
Molly:
Yeah. When a customer or when a customer pays online with a credit card, is that handled through the current bank?
Nathan:
I would have to go back and look at it. So the way that it's currently set up is, the customer customer goes through to pay with the credit card online that goes through a payment processor.
The payment processor collects the 2.25% fee that never comes to us. That goes directly to the processor. I think that that's bluefin. I'd have to double check. and then all we get is, actual bill revenue, but we don't collect any portion of the credit card fees.
Molly:
Okay because your, actual bank citywide, their bank fees are normally around 800 to 1400 a month.
So, I told Nathan I could call them and see what exactly that's for, because I'm not sure why those fees are so high every month. And they must be based on, a number of transactions, I'm assuming for that.
Nathan:
Yeah. Those to me took away the bank fees. Those were all processes that, Phyllis and CRS worked through.
So I don't have, I guess the that is an area of expertise that I'm relying on you guys for. Yep. And I could do that. I can call the bank to find out exactly what those charges are for every month. And
Jana:
I might have misunderstood this, but did I hear that we're paying Centennial Bank, the Centennial Bank, not Centennial.
Molly:
Sorry. Yeah, yeah, they're called citywide, but Centennial is like their official name. Thank you. So, yeah. Not the city. The bank.
Leah:
and just to try to connect the dots, is this what we were talking about? I think this is what we were talking about in the last in the study session last week, where we were like, whoa, our bank fees are really high, right?
Jason:
Thing? Yeah, that's exactly what we're talking about. Okay.
Molly:
Yeah, it was originally under credit card fees, but we'll we'll change that account to say bank fees. Yeah okay.
Nathan:
All right. The other breakdown that was requested, is, and I apologize. We're on page 94 of the packet. it was for what goes just kind of a breakdown of all of the expenses that go into the communications and public outreach budget. and so this is. A breakdown. So this is where our advertising goes. This is where we pay our creatives for the communications fee.
we also pay, the guys that are filming this media out of this, or filming and broadcasting the, the board meetings, we have some print messaging that goes out. So when we, when we send out our annual consumer confidence report that gets that gets covered in here, we purchase the quench by the quench buggy, VIP video Productions, stream line.
So that's our, our website or our web host provider, goes through here. You can kind of see a couple odd ones, Parker trailer and RV. That one was for the trailer that we carry the quench buggy around in, like, so this lands in business purchase. That was, the water bottles that we were giving out at individual events.
And so it really does cover, a large kind of swath of breakdowns. But that's this is where all of that money went.
and that's the same. You can see both funds break and broken down. We do split this. So it goes with the same 65%, to water, 35% to wastewater breakdown. So every invoice gets accounted for in each one of those individual enterprise funds.
Leah:
I. As a discussion for a later time, perhaps seeing this breakdown, I personally would question if we are getting the value for the price that we are paying for. Elara Creatives.
Jason:
Yeah, we can discuss that in another meeting for sure.
Leah:
Yeah. And because just to validate, I mean that looks like it's a little over 8000 a month. Correct.
Nathan:
$6,400 a month is the baseline.
And then there are, occasional other expenses they'll pick up. we don't we haven't always, for example, ordered giveaways for, the events that we go to directly. So we did with some of the water bottles and then, some of those things get ordered through Herbert. So the, average contract price or base contract price is 6400 a month, roughly. Thank you.
Jason:
Thanks for breaking those down, Nathan. okay, so, what verbiage
Nathan:
do I need to go into? I put some before, and then I do have one other, change, to the budget that is not included here. Let me get to that page. And this is actually something that just came up today. yes.
Bear with me while I get down to this.
So I would like to ask for approval with, the change to, Bear with me.
Describer:
On screen.
Well Enterprise Fund Budget Grid from 2023 Actual to proposed 2025 Excel sheet style grid. See page 104 of the board packet for more detail and Nathan will specify his emphasis on this page.
Nathan:
sorry. It's right here. The, well, vault control program. So that's on page 104, line item 60, 60, 77, 60. in right now, we have budgeted in the draft budget for $100,000, for 2025. I would like to increase that to $400,000 for 2025. That is not a total project increase. we're having some, lead time items.
So that's an ongoing capital project that's currently in the works. We're just not going to get as much of it done this year as we had anticipated. yeah. That's right here. Yeah. So we're not looking at a total project increase. what we're looking at is lower expenditures in 2024 and higher expenditures in 2025. Just because we're bridging that January January gap.
Jason:
Okay. And that's the only budget amendment. Correct.
Tera:
So it's just moving when we're spending it. We actually had already approved it. Correct. Yep.
Jason:
All right. Anything else? no. Okay. So, Kim, what's the verbiage that we need to use to go into, public hearing? you simply need to open the public hearing on the 2025 budget at 855 and take comment.
Jason:
Great. So we are going to open the, public hearing on our proposed 2025 budget at 815 or sorry, at 7:55 p.m..
And, we're open to public comment at this point. If you'd like to speak, please step up to the microphone.
You've already given us your name and address, but would you do it one more time, please? For me, if. My,
Steve Dawes, Castle Pines Resident:
Oh. Wrong red light. Sorry. received us 5703 just for point circle. So I think one of my questions about this budget was just answer. Does this budget include the rating of seven and eight per se? You just did I hear you see a head nodding.
And that would be an affirmative. Yes. This budget increased. When was the, when did you decide on 7% for residential rate increases? That was, given to us over the last couple months, we've had a couple of meetings about the rate increases. And so most recently it was last week when we went through a couple hour presentation on it.
Steve:
So last week you decided that residential rates should be raised 7%.
Jason:
Well, we don't decide anything until tonight. we were just given the, proposal.
Steve:
Well, you must have been told 7% by somebody, and there must have been some type of agreement to be 7%, because there was no notice in here of any rate increase of 7 or 8%.
There was no notice in the materials that I saw for the first time today, published on the website of seven and 8%. And so today you decided that you would approve a rate increase that you already had agreed to increase. And it was of more of a formality today, which to me says that the public hasn't been informed ahead of time of the proposed rate increase, and I had an opportunity to comment on it.
So I'm curious as to how the complies with the Open Meetings law. And,
Kim:
Mr. Chairman, notice was published, I believe, two months ago that the rate increases would be discussed. And then, Erik Helgeson that did the presentation tonight has been, I believe, at the last two board meetings and presented on this exact same issue. His company recommended the 7%.
And tonight the board voted on
Steve:
Right but when was the one was a 7% recommended.
Kim:
It's been discussed as part of his of, Mr. Helgeson study.
Steve:
Okay. Let me be more specific. When has the public been notified that, 7% already increase would be made? They were notified that the study would be discussed and that the my my question is, when was the public notified of 7% tonight.
Kim:
Right. Well, it's been it's been presented in every one of these presentations from the experts. So
Steve:
I'm not opposed to a rate increase. Don't get me wrong. I think if you need a rate increase of should have a rate increase. My concern, as I've expressed in other meetings, is that if you're going to have a rate increase of 7% or 8%, then the public should be advised ahead of time up the amount of that rate increase with an explanation of the reasons for it.
And today was the first time that I've seen my verbal is is not in here other than charts that a rate increase is necessary because inflation. the fact that there hasn't been a rate increase since 2021 by itself is not a reason. What you really mean is that inflation has increased the cost of items that you need to expend, and that there are capital improvements that need to be made.
And so to me, it seems to me that you already decided 7% increase. And today was just a formality. And I think that the public should be advised ahead of time that this is the rate increase. A you're anticipating so that public if anybody and there may be nobody can come here and raise a question about why is it 7 or 8%?
No, I'm not opposed to rate increases, I said, but I just think that there needs to be some advance notice
Tera:
to clarify. So we've been talking about this and for a couple of months the rate increase wasn't we didn't, approve the amount of 7% to until tonight, which is why we are had been talking earlier when we covered the communications director and why we're having an open house, because a rate increase isn't going to happen until January.
So we're taking December and January to communicate the rate increase. So we're not getting a rate increase. We, that didn't incorporate the amount until we had a study session last week. On Wednesday, we had a study session. That's when we budgeted the amount, but we didn't approve the 7% until the motion that we just made. So there was nothing to communicate that hasn't been communicated because we've said we are.
It's been on the agenda. It's been another study sessions. We've talked about rate increases. It's not it's not a new conversation today. So I hear what you're saying. But we also didn't decide the 7% until today. So we didn't have anything to communicate other than what we were communicating, which is we're considering rate increase because, again, it's for all the reasons that you said, we're not just saying we're doing it because we haven't done it since 2021.
We're saying we need to be responsible and operate this business like a business, and this is what it's going to take.
Nathan:
Yeah. So the the seven and 8% increases were, discussed and presented at the October board meeting. we talked about it again last week. This is the I have up on the screen a copy of the packet that you it's identical, the one that you have.
so this is out of there and you can I can go to the wastewater side too. But we clearly have the 7% in here. And that was also included in each of those individual presentations.
Steve:
So if you can cite me a document where 7% was mentioned,
Nathan:
you have it in your packet. It's this is from your back,
Steve:
the one that came out today.
Correct. Right. So you said you came up with a budget that incorporated a 7% increase. So that means you are you decided on 7% on Wednesday. Yeah.
Tera:
On Wednesday. That's not a public meeting. This is the public hearing. You're always me. They're always public. all of our meetings are public meetings.
Kim:
And, Mr. Chairman, you talking about the study session on Wednesday?
Nathan:
Yes. The the and to be clear, Wednesday was not posted as a study session. It was posted it was posted as a special work session.
Steve:
okay. Well, again, I mean, if we need to rate increase, I have no problem with it. I just think that, the first time I've heard 7% was today and nobody in the public, to my knowledge, was aware of 7% until today when you voted on it.
I think the public should have, you know, a month or so or a week or something to at least come to an agreement because we're communicating that it's coming out in the, in the December connection or you were communicating in, in January for takes place, but you've already voted on it. I'm talking about prior to a vote. So the members of the public can come in here and express their thoughts, if they have any, about whether it should be seven, eight, nine for whatever percent.
It doesn't cut it, in my view, to say, oh, we're approving 7%, and we're letting you know now that we'll tell you more about it later on. You've already decided it's something that the public had no input on, on your decision until today. That's all my view is.
Leah:
And the only other point I want to make is I'm sorry, I just to recap what I'm hearing.
I mean, it it sounds like on one hand we've checked kind of all of, you know, the required boxes. But on the other hand, you know, we're hearing from an involved resident are probably our most involved resident, that, you know, this is a surprise to him. and so I think it's fair feedback for the board to take and think about in the future.
How could we more thoughtfully message that so that it's more clear ahead of time? And and maybe that entails, you know, going above and beyond kind of those required, check boxes. but regardless, just wanted to thank you for your feedback.
Steve:
Thank you. The only other question I had was it looked to me, and I'm not good with reading these reports that on the Water Enterprise Fund, and I assume the 7% is because of expenses in the Water Enterprise Fund.
Largely. That's the reason for the increase. That that'd be true. I see one head nodding. So I'm going to take that as a yes. it's looked to me like 3.2 or $3 million was associated with a monarch water line replacement, and that that was a large portion of the gap between, what expenditures are anticipating and what the budget needed to be.
Am I right or wrong about that?
Nathan:
So the the rates are driven by not only the current capital projects that we have, but also the projected expenditures moving beyond 2025. So we have a pretty good understanding of what our capital outlays are going to be with specific projects in mind through 2027. there is, under the meeting notes for under the meeting documents on our website for last month, we have, at least the initial draft of the budget that we're going to send out to everybody that has a breakdown of all of those individual capital projects in both funds.
you're correct that the water line, the monarch water line is a large expense on the water side, it's, considerably smaller than, even a full build out. It's about half of what our filter pilot program is going to be outlining. We have a pretty solid fund balance on the water side. So we're not in in jeopardy on that side.
So the wastewater rates, are more heavily impacted because of the lift station program. And so that's, what Eric had mentioned earlier. So on the wastewater side, we're actually going to be looking at or doing a fund loan from the water fund to the wastewater enterprise fund. and that's what drives that 8% on the wastewater side.
Without that, I think Eric said it would have been about double ish. We'd be looking at, like a 15 to 16% increase on the waste.
Steve:
Well, it seemed to me that that lift station was a required. I mean, you had to upgrade that life station. Correct. That's one of the complaints, wasn't it, that Parker had. yes.
Nathan:
Yeah.
It's more. Yeah, it's it's driven by a lot of things, but yeah.
Steve:
So on the water side, I'm looking at monarch water line replacement 3.25 or million dollars, which to me looks like the majority of the gap between funds available was budgeted. So it would seem, unless I'm mistaken, that the monarch water waterline replacement is a large reason for the water side increase.
Would that be fair? That and the filter rehab project, which is double the expense of the monarch project
Steve:
and so for the next phase of monarch water improvement, it's going to be the same problem, right? I don't know that there's a well you've got in 2025 monarch water line replacement. Now $3.678 million. So that proposed increase estimated for well, that's 2024 2025 is 1.2.
So these expenses for the monarch water line replacement are in large part driving the increase for the, water side of the 7%.
Nathan:
Looking into the future, I think what's driving it the again, so the more significant impacts to the budget are the filter project, because that's going to be, $3 million in each of the next two years.
And then the other primary driving factor is that we've seen that, slightly above 24% inflation since the last time that we've done rates
Steve:
right inflation, we understand. So the next phase of monarch waterline line line replacement is to replace existing ductile iron pipe with whatever their PVC or whatever it's made out of. we've selected C 900 as the replacement material.
Yes, whatever that is. Yeah, yeah. PVC pipe. And how old was the ductile iron pipe that's being replaced?
Nathan:
and it was installed, roughly, and depending on the section. But between 1986 and 1991, and I and I'm not necessarily questioning the replacement because I understand that you got an opportunity here with a road being rebuilt. Therefore, you can get into the water lines a lot more cheaply then later on.
It's just so I've been looking into ductile iron water lines and, American Waterworks Association and a number of industry people say that ductile iron water line should last 100 or more years.
Nathan:
Absolutely it should. Yeah. So to answer that question directly, that's, assuming couple things in. The biggest one is that it's assuming proper installation. We did not have proper installation on those water lines.
So when you install ductile iron water like waterline especially, it's important to put a clear coating around it, a plastic coating completely wrap our lines were not installed with that.
Steve:
Yeah, you mentioned that to me before. Correct in the conversation. I'm aware of the need for the plastic, around the ductile iron. How much of monarch was missing the plastic?
All of it?
Nathan:
from the full scope of our project. So from Monarch and Castle Pines Parkway to Buffalo Ridge Trail, and the there's a secondary driving factor there is that that line was also not appropriately sized when it was built. So the growth on the north end of the district wasn't fully anticipated. And so we're also seeing higher than, or higher velocities in terms of how fast the water moves through there, which can also contribute to iron disturbances and things like that.
So it was poorly installed. which means that. Yeah, absolutely. A line that we would expect to see 100 years out of, we got 40. and then the other side of that is the, the condition issues, not aside. It was also the incorrect size. It wasn't big enough water line to fully support from the north end.
Steve:
And do we have any remedy for the poor installation and design?
Nathan:
We do. We have a, monarch Capital project waterline replacement?
Steve:
No. Or remedy against the people responsible for incorrect installation? poor design.
Nathan:
No, not And not at this point. We don't.
Steve:
When did we discover that there was incorrect installation and poor design?
Kim:
Mr. Chairman, and we've moved away from the budget. This is a budget hearing, and, Mr. Dawes is entitled to comment on the budget.
there shouldn't this back and forth really isn't required. and also, I think we've gotten far afield from just the budget, which is what we have to deal with tonight.
Steve:
Understood. I was just trying to find out why the budget is what it is and how much money we're expending on the budget, and whether or not there's a source of alternative funds that could offset some of that cost.
But I made my point. Thank you,
Jason:
thank you. Do we have anybody else who would like to make comment? Nobody online. Okay. We'll go ahead and close the public hearing.
And now we'll move to consider approval of budget mill levy and appropriation of funds. Or, are we going to do that, tonight or are We postponing it. Sorry, I saw the choice here.
Kim:
that's up to you. You have completed all of the legal requirements for it and gone far above what's required. So if you wish to vote on it tonight, you can do so.
And I think, Phyllis, I want to make sure that you're, satisfied with where we are. or if you want to postpone the vote until the 11th, you can do that as well
Jason:
as a board. Does anybody have any questions or issues that would require us to wait till December 11th? Okay, well,
Phyllis Brown, CRS:
This is Phyllis, I do have some input, so approving it.
Kim, subject to final AB and modifying the taxes to be received based on that final copy that will receive. Correct. So, I approve, object to that.
Kim:
Yeah. December 10th will get another, valuation notice from the county. It will may change just a little bit, but they're given that much time. So your approval would be of the dollars that Phyllis has put into Phyllis and Nathan have put into the budget.
And then we'll go back and recalculate the mill levy if necessary. And, to get those dollars,
Tera:
does your suggested motion in here incorporate all of that? is there one in the legal status report? I think so. Moved to approve the resolution, adopting the budget, levying property taxes and appropriating money to each fund as presented by the meeting packet and directing to certify the mill levy.
Kim:
Yes. And if you just add at the end to be absolutely certain, any with any changes required by any change in the valuation, the final valuation, with any changes in the final valuation, as suggested by our attorney, and with the understanding that no, staff will be hired prior to us approving our, I don't remember the name of the policy
Jason:
resolution to delegated authority to district,
Tera:
the resolution to delegate the authority of district manager.
Board Voting All Speak:
I'll second that. Having a second. We'll go to vote. Jim. Approve, Tera. Approve? Well, yeah. Approve, Jana. Approve. And I approve as well.
Jason:
So that will make that unanimous. And we'll go ahead and close out the, presentation of the 2022, 2025 budget. Next, we'll move on to the legal counsel's report. Kill. The only action item you have in the report is, in consideration of the memorandum of understanding regarding the regional Water efficiency study. so we've been talking about that now for a very long time, but I believe it's about two months ago, this agreement came before you and we had some substantial changes.
Then it came again from, the manager for Dominion at, the last board meeting. And I had some concerns that, Paula and I address those with her and all of the changes that you requested and that we have requested have been made. So this document reflects everything that we discussed at the last several board meetings.
Tera:
And I appreciate you doing that.
Cleaned up. And I make a motion to approve the memorandum of understanding as presented. I'll second that.
Board Voting All Speak:
All right. Great. let's go to vote. Jim. Approve. Tera. I. Jana. Approve. Leah approves. I approve as well. So thank you for your hard work on that, Jim.
Kim:
Just to cover Nathan. You're okay with him signing it? Yes. Yeah. And that's it for me.
Jason:
All right. Very good. We'll go ahead and close out the legal counsel's report and move on to the district manager's report. Nathan.
Describer:
On screen.
From: Nathan J. Travis
To: CPNMD Board of Directors
Date: 11/25/2024
Re: District Manager’s Report
The first Nathan speaks on is not included in this report.
CDPHE Lab Sample invalidation
• CDPHE notified us at the end of October that several of the water quality samples we submitted to the State Lab in 2020 were "invalidated due to a lapse in quality assurance, going on to say "at this time there is nothing you need to do. The division will reach out to you shortly and go over the next steps for your system, if applicable"
Worth noting that the samples in question (For CPNMD) are for copper, and Total Halo acetic Acids
(HAA5). Neither of these contaminants are a concern for our system, because of our source water, and
relatively young system age. Several years ago, we stopped using the State Lab and have been using
Colorado Analytical to do our water sample testing. The invalidated test results, although concerning at a State Level, do not raise any concerns that our water was unsafe, as our levels are well below the water quality standards. We have never been out of compliance for copper, or HAA5. All our testing prior to the invalidated results, and since then have been well below the regulatory levels.
Nathan:
Good evening guys. so I do have, let me get my notes pulled back up. so before we get into it, I do have one update, that I want to provide the board.
So we do have, one neighborhood. It's the Pine Ridge HOA. I think it's villa carriage homes. It's at the intersection of, Buffalo Trail and Castle Pines Parkway. the residents there have been saying we've got about four homes that have seen an unusual amount of groundwater over the last couple months. we have been doing quite a bit of research on our end to make sure that it's not coming from our system.
we've done chlorine checks in the water that's coming out of the ground. We've done some leak detection. but I did just want to let the board know that that's going on in case any questions come up. The HOA has secured, an engineering firm to begin looking at it. And so we're, we're we're openly working with them to try and make sure that, they've got all of the information that we need, but there's nothing at this time that leads us to believe that it's that our system is the source.
At any point.
Leah:
I have a good question. I am familiar with that neighborhood. It's right behind our neighborhood when you say. And this is just because this is not my area of expertise at all. Maybe this is a silly question, but like an unusual amount of groundwater. Like what? What does that look like? Like where would they be seeing that and how would they be experiencing that?
Nathan:
Good clarification. Yeah. So in this case they have, noticed that sump pumps that have historically run infrequently are now running on almost constant cycles. And so it affects four, four individual homes. Okay. Thank you for that.
Tera:
And if that were like an underground well or something how would we determine what how do we do kind of problem resolution on that.
Nathan:
so our our role there isn't necessarily to definitively discover the source, but our role is to eliminate our system as a potential problem. And so that's the process that we're working through. Once we've verified that our system is isn't leaking or causing any issues, any work beyond that would be up to them.
That's fair. I also wanted to touch bases on and also see if there were any board questions regarding the recent report that has come out regarding, related to the Colorado Department of Health and Environment, laboratory. So they did have a laboratory technician that was not following proper sample procedures. the end result of that is that several thousand water quality samples have been invalidated.
we as a district haven't sent any of our water quality samples there since, I think 2022. that decision was not made, as with any kind of confidence, or issues with the state lab in mind, it was really removed to see because our operations firm, they use a different lab, Colorado Analytical, for all of their samples.
And so they began taking ours there. we did have a sample subset, from 2018 through 2020, specifically looking at something called halo acetic acids or HAA5. and then our copper samples. So we, we got a notification from the state that they had invalidated that band of samples. There's the letter specifically says that there's nothing that we need to do at this time.
our we, we as a district have a high level of confidence that there wasn't that there aren't any health or safety concerns associated with those are our testing levels. both prior to that point. And since then, have been well below any federal guidelines or regulations. It's my understanding that the, improper testing procedures that were used on those samples can marginally, artificially lower some of those results.
But we're so far away from any kind of issue that it's it's really not going to be, not going to be a problem for our residents. So we're we're in a holding pattern. And like the other utilities that were affected to see if there's going to be any, resampling requirements or anything that comes from the state, I have been told that should that be necessary, that the, state lab will be responsible for any associated costs.
But honestly, I'd be surprised if they asked us to.
Jason:
And do we have kind of that little summary on our website for.
Nathan:
We do. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We posted a notification banner as soon as the story broke last Monday. we have seen a slight we have seen a slight uptake uptick in, resident requests for, testing.
I got like, I think three requests today that I haven't gotten, I wasn't able to respond to because I didn't have access to my computer for the majority of the day. I don't know if those are related or not. My guess is that they probably are.
Tera:
Appreciate you addressing that, for the record, because I think we all saw our name get scrolled on the local news station.
So thank you for clarifying that and making sure that we're communicating that and getting it on our website and putting it in the record of our meeting.
Nathan:
Absolutely. to do the other thing that we have on the agenda is the approval of the 2025 Board of Directors meeting schedule. so this was included in the packet. It's, fairly straightforward.
This still maintains the fourth Monday of every month for the regular board meeting, as well as the previous Wednesday, with the notable exception of the first meeting, in January, somebody had booked this room for that day months ago, and so it just wasn't available for that. So I am, asking that we just move that meeting, to the following the following day, Thursday, January 23rd.
Describer:
On screen. This is the correct schedule as reflected on May 31, 2025.
2025 CPNMD BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING SCHEDULE
7404 Yorkshire Drive, Castle Pines, CO 80108
Join us live at www.cpnmd.org/board-meetings
CPNMD Regular Board Meetings are generally held at 6:00pm on the fourth Monday of each month.
Board Study Sessions are held on the prior Wednesday at 5:30pm.
Board Study/Work Session 5:30pm Thursday, January 23rd, Wednesday, February 19th, Wednesday, March 19th, Monday, April 21st Special Board Meeting Monday, May 19th Monday, June 16th Monday, July 21st Monday, August 18th Monday September 15th Board 2025 Budget Special Meeting Monday, October 20th Monday, November 17th • Dates and Times are subject to change • Study & Work Sessions held on an as- needed basis
Regular Board Meetings Monday, January 27th Monday, February 24th Monday, March 24th Monday, April 28th Tuesday, May 27th* Moved to accommodate Memorial Day, Monday, June 23rd Monday, July 28th Monday, August 25th Monday, September 22nd Presentation of 2025 Draft Budget Monday, October 27th Public Hearing, Adopt 2025 Budget Monday, November 24th Monday, December 29th If Necessary Adjusted Date Tentative
Nathan:
this budget or this this schedule also has a much more aggressive schedule for the budgets. so I would like to, you know, get this in writing is our certainly our target. We can obviously change them if we have, a need to, but rather than, looking at, you know, October for the initial presentation and, November or December for the, adoption of the budget, I would rather see that much, much earlier.
So we'd start with our own internal budget process, likely in June or early July, and then move basically everything up by about a month and a half.
Leah:
I'm wondering and maybe not, but for me, it's helpful to see on the schedule where we like denoted where there's going to be like a budget work session and the draft budget and etc..
I'm wondering if maybe we could incorporate like if we anticipate, you know, any additional like rate studies, or discussions around rate increases, you know, just to add that additional layer of transport currency.
Nathan:
Yeah, we certainly can. and so we're on I've got it up on the screen here, but we're on page 121 in the packet.
so we, I do have the budget work sessions and draft budget in here, but we can certainly include, as far in advance as we have that same information regarding rates or any of those other things. Thank you.
Tera:
So do we have to approve this tonight? Do you have to approve it or is it for presentation or.
Kim:
Yeah, we'll need to know when the next meeting will be. Should also consider your December 11th meeting because I you I'm not sure you have anything to do with at this time. You've finished all of your annual requirements.
Jason:
All right. So we'll go ahead and, leave the board meeting schedule till December 11th. But I would say we can go off of the first, January meetings.
Tera:
We don't need a December 11th meeting. Oh, okay. Unless you even better fit. Okay. So. And then do we don't have a other December meeting because it's Christmas or something.
Nathan:
yeah. Correct. If we don't have any, we, you know, we kind of wrapped it up in the middle of all the holiday season. the majority of, you know, even surrounding districts in the city of vacated their December meetings,
Leah:
But I don't have a strong point of view on this, but just thought I'd throw it out there. I know that we pushed the the visit from Michael Penney back to January in anticipation that we would have a full agenda, for the December meeting. And so, like, if that date worked for the city, is is that something the rest of the board would be interested in?
so that, you know, we get that information sooner rather than later and we don't lose more momentum.
Tera:
So this was something that I was going to bring up in my directors matters, but I'm actually wondering if that is too soon, because I feel like our board has been going in a bunch of different directions. And to your earlier point, we haven't really talked about what we want to do collectively as a board, our long term strategy and so or what we should be exploring.
And I feel like the board should have a study session, probably in January, to where we all talk about what it is and in coalesce on what our long term board, you know, what our board goals are because maybe, you know, it could be, you know, exploring a any number of options and having that just feels disjointed to me and out of process because as a board, we haven't really said that that's something that we've prioritized or that we want to explore.
And I wrote down your language. Okay. So the strategic thinking and our long term goal about what we want to do, and I feel like we need to set those priorities before we start even, you know, talking about Parker or talking about the city or talking about Centennial or any of that, I don't feel like we're all on the same page.
And I would think it'll be more important for us all to be on the same page than do that.
Nathan:
Yeah. And to to that point, that was, we're jumping ahead an item here. But for discussing the necessity of the January study session or potential work session, that was going to be my recommendation for the board was to at least begin that process at that January study session meeting, where we can really start looking at those organizational, like overreaching goals and really have a work session geared toward that and at least get things moving in the right direction.
But that's something that would certainly make my job a lot easier as well.
Jason:
Yeah, I think this is the appropriate move. The city does something similar. you know, they go on their retreat in January to kind of set their direction that they want to, to go in for the year. So I think that's probably a better use of time.
Leah
although sorry, my, my and I appreciate the points of view. Totally valid. And, and I don't know what the quote unquote right answer is. and I agree, like, I do think we need to be more strategic in our approach in terms of what comes next. But for me, it would be I, I personally think exploring and integration with this city, like, I just see it as gathering information at this point.
And so like it would be more difficult for me to decide, like, does that make strategic sense without getting, a sense of like what that would look like and what our options would be, and just kind of hearing from the city manager again and more of like an exploratory way similar to what we're doing with Dominion. you know, we're, we're exploring that information so that we can decide if it makes sense or not.
and so I feel like we're going to have to do that at some point with any of these potential options. and, you know, at least as of now, we've, we've got the interest of the city manager. So, again, I don't know what the right answer is, but just, you know, throwing it out there.
Nathan:
So as we're as we're currently scheduled, Michael is planning on attending the January meeting.
considering it's November 25th and the week of Thanksgiving and kind of our truncated timeline timelines, I don't personally even really feel like it would be fair to ask him to do a presentation more than a month earlier than he's currently scheduled. I think that it it probably makes more sense to keep him at the January session.
I mean, if it's just, present information gathering, I agree that that's fantastic and that's wonderful. that also gives us an opportunity to at least meet at the work session prior to that.
Tera:
But I think that's entirely my point is we have to work as a body. That's one perspective. As a board. We need to all say, or the majority of the board needs to say yes, this is something that we need to do, but we have to to me, again, take a step back and think strategically.
Do we want to do do we want to look at this? Do we what do we want to look at. And then we need to explore the pros and cons of each. And I don't think that one, presentation, in a, you know, in a board, in a meeting, I don't think it's out of process, it's out of joint.
And, and I think we do need to talk about what our goals and priorities are. because maybe renewable water is more of something that we should be looking at or, you know, I don't I don't know, you know, do we want to look at integration? Do we want to where do we want to go? And to me, going to a specific place seems out of process.
Leah:
Could we use our December board meeting then, like if we kept it on the books, use it to start that strategic conversation, and then if we felt like that was an option to explore, then we keep our January, meeting with the city manager. That's already been kind of agreed upon on, on the schedule,
Tera:
well, our December board meeting is on Christmas Eve, so I won't be here.
Nathan:
It's currently scheduled for the only meeting that we have scheduled for 11th December 11th, which is not Christmas Eve.
Jana:
So it's not something that we could discuss in a study session of December 11th. The December 11th is a regular. It's scheduled this regular board meeting. Okay. Right.
LeahL
Yeah. So that was my point is like we've already got something on the books for a reasonable point in time.
December 7th, 11th. And again, like it's been on the books for, I don't know, six plus months. I don't want to have a board meeting just to have one, but, like, it sounds like what I'm hearing you say, Tera is like, oh, there's a big gap in terms of not having had that discussion. And so we now have an opening and something that's already on our calendars.
to begin addressing that gap.
Nathan:
So, Leah, just for my own confusion, so your original ask was that we bring Michael to or ask Michael to attend on December 11th for a presentation. Now you are saying that you would like to keep the December 11th meeting so that we can begin having the, more like organization direction conversations. Is that correct?
Leah:
Yeah. So I was just trying to pivot, to address Tera's feedback, which is, you know, what I heard Tera say is, hey, it makes more sense to have to have that conversation first before we hear from the city manager.
And so if we've got the city manager scheduled for January, and we think it's important to have that conversation before, I'm just highlighting that we have an opening that's already on the books where we could pivot and repurpose and start that conversation, and you know, if we keep that meeting on the books and we start that conversation and we feel like, okay, it doesn't make sense to move forward, then we have plenty of notice.
you know, to give Michael Penny
Tera:
why is it so pressing?
Leah:
Why would we not want to gather information? Because again, I see this.
Tera:
I'm saying we should gather information on all options, but we haven't talked together about what all options are, and that is typically something that most organizations do in January. I'm wondering why it's so pressing to get it done on the 11th.
Leah:
Why are you so concerned that I'm proposing having it a month earlier?
Tera:
I'm not concerned. I'm just saying the only purpose to have a December 11th meeting was for budget. And now we're totally shifting. I don't know if we have time to prepare.
Jana:
I'm gonna. I'm gonna add to this. I don't think it's that we're the. The concern is that we have the meeting in December 11th. I think for me, the concern is I don't want to dissolve the Michael Penny presentation.
So I don't think it's about the December 11th. I think it's for me, I would like to keep his presentation to the board for January. So just speaking on behalf of me,
Leah:
I would also like to keep that presentation. And so Tera, like I don't feel a rush to have that December meeting. That was me just trying to incorporate your feedback of if if we keep that January meeting, which I also would like to do.
I just wanted to be respectful of your feedback, which is, you know, if you want to talk about it as a board, we have an opportunity to do that in December. But what I'm hearing is you don't seem to want to take that opportunity. And so where can we maybe compromise here?
Nathan:
Yeah. And sort of it to be just for everybody's clarification.
That is what the I pulled the screen down, but that's what the January I'm proposing for the January work session is, which would be the week prior to that board meeting. So we don't we we still have that opportunity in place prior to, Michael coming and doing that presentation, I do have a feeling that it will probably cover that will span more than one work session.
but the way, the, the way that things are currently set up, it would be, the initial board director like kind of organizational direction conversation on that Thursday, Michael Penny would present the following Monday. And then if we need to have additional meetings, to talk about organizational direction. Well, we could do that at ongoing study sessions or schedule additional meetings.
Jana:
And to add to this, my thought is that, kind of to add to how do we know what our options are to talk through if they haven't been brought to us? We don't even know what the option looks like without gathering that information first, in the same way that we're looking at other stuff. So I don't think that there's there's any big rush for us to make a decision, but I don't think we should just pause on gathering the the information just because we don't know what direction.
I think this will help us make an idea of what direction to go into.
Jason:
Okay. So on January 23rd, then we do the study session and we can do a strategic meeting out of it. And then, go forward with the Monday, the following Monday board meeting. Yep. Mr. Chairman, and skip December 11th. Altogether,
Kim:
what I'm hearing is a motion to cancel the December 11th meeting and approve the, 2025 meeting schedule.
and you can add in there if you want, that Michael Penny on the 27th and the, more general discussion on the 23rd. If you want, but it sounds like that was already the intention. Yeah, it sounds like that's already scheduled. So, so I'll make a motion then to cancel the December 11th, board meeting and to, approve the, board meetings, the 2025 board meeting schedule.
Board Voting All Speak:
I'll second that. All right. Having a second. We'll go to vote. Jim. Approve. Tera. I Leah approve, Jana. Approve. And I approve as well.
Jason:
All right, so I think that will close out the district manager's report.
Nathan:
Yeah. Unless there are Any additional questions? I don't hear any. Okay. And we kinda already discussed the January study session, so we'll close out item number 14 as well. And we'll move to director's matters. Is anybody have anything else they'd like to discuss.
Tera:
Yes. Thank you. So obviously the two things that I really wanted to address are in the past. And I can't remember if we have done that this year, but in the past we reviewed all the contracts. That's something that I think the board would like to do and might, you know, dovetail nicely with our policy or, resolution that we were discussing tonight, but reviewing all the contracts, I think that also would be helpful for the board.
And then again, I think the board needs to have kind of like a retreat or a discussion about what our board priorities are and all get on the same page.
Jason:
So I think our, study session in January, that should be our goal is to kind of discuss that and, and set the ground the groundworks. So very good.
Does anybody else have anything? All right. Hearing none. I'll go ahead and close out directors matters and we will adjourn the meeting. Thank you, everybody, for coming. Oh, and happy holidays.