Study Session
March 19, 2025
Transcript
Describer:
Here is the agenda for this event:
Work Session
Wednesday, March 19th, 2025, at 5:30 p.m.
7404 Yorkshire Drive, Castle Pines, CO 80108
I. Call Special Meeting Work Session to order.
II. Roll call.
III. Finance Items.
A. Discussion: Financial Controls Policy
B. Review: 2025 Financial Calendar- Upcoming Work Session Topics & Board Meeting Objectives.
C. Review: Monthly Claims for Payments:
1. Review: Draft Bi-Weekly Bill Pay notice to Board of Directors
2. Review: Payments made from February 15th, 2025, to March 13th, 2025.
D. Review: Expenditure Requests
1. Sigler Communications contract.
2. A-2 Repair Expenditure Request.
IV. Legal Items
A. Review: Amended Renewable Water Resolution.
V. Adjourn.
Describer:
The video starts on graphic with a white background and forest green letters which says “Castle Pines North Metro District Study Session March 19, 2025”. The meeting opens on a shot of all board members present.
Board All Speak:
Good evening, and welcome to Castle Pines North Natural District. Work session today is Wednesday, March 19th, 2025 at 5:30 p.m.. We're going to call the special meeting work session to order, and we'll begin with the roll call. Jim. Present. No conflicts. Tara. Present. No conflicts. Leah. Present. No conflicts. And I'm Jason. Present. No conflicts. We are missing. Jenna Tonight.
Board President Jason Blackaert:
We will, move right along and go into, financial items. Item number three. And we'll start with the discussion of the financial controls policy. Good evening.
Molly Janzen, Accountant:
Steph. Yes. Oh. Thank you. Nice to see you in person. I'm Molly Johnson. I work with Eric Harris. and I am here tonight in lieu of Eric. His parents flew in for spring break.
so he is not here. I will start off this discussion, but I welcome Paul and Nathan to chip in. we did have a conversation earlier this week or last week. regarding the financial controls policy. really wanting to make sure that our processes are aligned with what you intend, to see out of that policy.
We have ran into a number of things that might need clarification in the policy. I'm not ready to discuss those in detail yet, but, some examples would be we have utility payments that might be larger than the 50,000. And that's not specifically identified as an exception to getting the approvals, things like that. so again, I won't go into a lot of detail.
I think our intent is to meet at least one more time, and then come back with some tweaks to the policy.
District Manager Nathan Travis:
yeah. So we should have the. Does anybody else hearing feedback? Yep.
Was that it? So, centers. How about now? Test one two. Test. I think we got it. yeah. Cool. We got it now. so I think we'll be, the plan is to bring that to the this is March April study session to go over and then, move forward, make any adjustments and then move for the an amendment, I guess would be the way to put it.
I guess move to amend, amend the policy that at the next board meeting. nothing substantive, just really trying to get it more get some more clarification in there to make all of our lives easier. and then later on in the meeting tonight, when we get down to finance item C, we'll talk about a few more things that might impact it that we want to do just to kind of streamline things or get your opinions on anyway.
Cool. I think yes. Monthly claims for payments.
Molly:
Okay. Moving on.
So moving into the next item, the review of the bi weekly bill paid, notice, I believe this is, the one in the packet was fairly small and hard to read. This is the since they have this copy. Okay. so this is, again looking at our disbursements and the policy and trying to identify where in the policy these types of disbursements fall and providing that type of information for you on this, report.
And I don't, have I wasn't going to go into it in a lot of detail unless you had questions.
Jason:
Anybody have any questions regarding this?
Board Member Tera Radloff:
No. But I do appreciate you bringing up the financial controls, because I noticed when I was looking through here, I was like, why do we have to approve core? That seems like that should be something that should get paid. So thanks for bringing that up. Great.
Board Member James Mulvey:
Yeah. I guess when we talk about amendments and I have no issue doing that and makes sense and I think we talked about it early on of, you know, things that might need to go into a separate category or at least, you know, excluded from these requirements.
from an accounting perspective. I mean, obviously, this is great. Not saying it is isn't, but, do you have anything to add besides, like, what's going on in the columns? You know, as far as what you see and what you think might be good categories to exclude?
Molly:
I think that will be forthcoming as we get more, we learn more about the district and the financial activity.
And as we keep preparing financial information, we'll, we'll, we'll have things to add. I'm sure I don't at this time, though.
Jim:
You think that's one month or two months or even longer than that? Or do you think this will this kind of evolve as
Molly:
it will of, I believe it will evolve every single month as we move along.
Jason:
Nathan, I have a quick question for you. What is I monochlorine. it's the second to the last item. It's, $38,000. is that a chemical? That was.
Nathan:
Oh, so that is, that one's not a chemical. So that's actually a mono chloramine analyzer. and so one of the things that we've been looking at for a while now is the monitoring equipment at the water treatment plant. So this is the device that's mounted to the wall that continuously test the water. We've got a few of them.
we have for a very, very long time used a company called Hawk. they were, they were, they were a local company. with industry standard. But a lot of people have used them. they got purchased about a year and a half ago by a pretty large multinational conglomerate. And they're, products have really just fallen off the shelf.
So getting, the biggest problem that we've been having with them is in the, like, the repairs and maintenance side and then the reagents. So we've been we've had, I think we've spent 25 ish thousand dollars last year on a maintenance contract like we have for a really, really long time. we could not get them out here to maintain that equipment to save our lives.
and the other issue that we were having, were the reagents. And so the reagents or the chemicals that go in the analyzer that they use to test the water. We were getting reagent deliveries, sometimes for months after we actually made them. And then the reagents that we were getting were showing up expired. So we couldn't even technically, legally use them.
So we started looking at some different manufacturers, along with, in conjunction with the filter project. This is something that was going to go anyway. and so the one that we bought, this is a modern chloramine analyzer. So one, it's a lot cheaper than Hawk. It's about $10,000 cheaper than Hawk. It's, newer technology, but it's a company that's been around for a really long time.
Parts are readily available. Their primary retailers, USA Blue Book, which is very similar to a Granger. and so we brought one of them in did a four month pilot project on it. I think we started that in, well, a more of a demo, I guess, than a pilot, and it worked absolutely flawlessly. So the reagents cost about half as much.
The machine was significantly cheaper. And so we went ahead and swapped it out because our monarch analyzer, but just wasn't working right. We couldn't get anybody out to repair it. one thing that we are working on is we did get a delivery of a bunch of Hawk equipment to replace a bunch of things that we had. I mean, we had sent that thing in.
I don't even know if it was in the 2024 count or the 2025 calendar, 2024 calendar year. And we just got a bunch of that quick. All of that equipment showed up. And so we're working with Hawk to get all of that stuff returned. And so, we should be getting a check from them sometime soon. we're also going to look at some other process equipment at the plant, and slowly but surely kind of move away from all of our Hawk products.
We've got another eight and nine analyzers. far. But the rest of them are significantly cheaper. The monochloramine analyzers. And at that $38,000 one, the rest of them are all around like 6 or 7 grand each or less. So, that's something that you can expect over the next few months. we'll probably try to just roll it into the filter project and have it have it done, have it done that way, just so that we're working through the CMGC contract and working with, Kennedy Jenks and folding it into that process.
But if we lose equipment before we get to that point, we'll bring it in.
Jason:
Okay. Thanks. Yep.
Molly:
There aren't any other questions. If there aren't any other questions, we can move on to looking at the disbursements. so you'll see a disbursement summary. with the information totaling checks of 877,004 4422 electronic payments, 39,003 1863. On the following page, you'll see the detail, regarding those electronic payments, what they're comprised of.
Tera:
So, Molly, remind me what the bank service charges are because those have gone down a lot, which is one of our goals.
Molly:
The bank service charges for we have two types of fees city wide charges a monthly analysis fee. And then is it banco the credit card processor. There's a monthly fee with them as well.
Jason:
Do we need to make a motion on this? So this is so this is just for review tonight.
Nathan:
So if you guys have any questions we could in theory bring back more information at the board meeting. if there aren't any substantive questions, this will get folded into the consent agenda, at Monday's meeting.
Tera:
So, just one quick question, because it's sometimes it's hard to tell, I guess.
Is this our last, payment to Community Resource Services at the end of February or not?
Nathan:
Not yet. Because we still have Allison. So those those are going to go down significantly. But until we, Get fully staffed up and, change that part. So we'll, we'll still get some bills.
Jason:
Okay. Any other questions? I think we can move on to the next item.
Tera:
Need. I think that's you. The calendar.
Nathan:
this is still Molly. She's getting situated on there.
Molly:
Sorry. I just had to get through the pages to find the calendar. so there is a financial planning calendar provided in your packet on that calendar. We have identified the work session dates and the board meeting dates and at various meetings, as well as then a timeline around the budget process, things like that.
one of the things that we discussed as we were putting this together is you do have monthly meetings, and we do want to be able to provide financial information to you monthly. there are couple thoughts around this. And one is that in order to provide information that is not going to change, we would like to provide information in arrears.
So in other words, that this upcoming board meeting you would be provided a January budget to actual. I think you're talked about this a little bit too. at the next board meeting, you be provided a February budget actual and the following board meeting in May, you would be provided a full set of financials for the first quarter.
Describer:
On screen. The Castle Pines North Metro District Financial Planning Calendar - 2025, It is a schedule of the financial process overviews which will happen throughout the year in work sessions and board meetings reviewing various aspects of district accounting and finance.
Molly
And those quarterly financial rules that are really when we get into, looking at assumptions on projections. So we'll look at where we are in the first at the end of the first quarter compared to where we thought we would be, and try to estimate out for the rest of the year. And that's when we can give you a lot more meaningful information, as when we look at that on a quarterly basis.
but we do want to provide information to you monthly as well. I'm not sure if that's been historically how the information has flowed. Okay. But that would be our proposal and that we would just set that as the pattern going forward.
Nathan:
Jim, I don't know that you could have had a better reaction to that, but just
Jim:
I just appreciate you just going through that.
Just and baselining what your plan is because we're laughing and a couple of us laughing because we never even receive that much.
Nathan:
So in that, in that we worked really well in conjunction with the financial control policy as well. So even though we're getting the kind of budget to actual like a full month behind because we're still doing the expenditure approvals, you guys will still have a pretty good pulse on, like what's going out the door today.
And then, you know, getting the budget to actual in their arrears. another big driver of this is that it'll let us get that. It's one of the big factors that will let us get board packet information out faster. So we're not in as in as tight of a window because we'll have it. We'll be working with older data.
Tera:
Yeah. If you just kind of keep an eye on and advise us if those, kind of monthly amounts, are in line with what have been like, I know when they've been really a lot bigger, but I can't remember if around 800 is what we have, if there's any kind of fluctuation like that, if you'll include that since you're doing it in the year, is that because.
So you can close out all your journal entries and stuff?
Molly:
Yes, yes. And kind of along those lines, the other thing that we talked about is moving to a monthly payables process. So, up to this point payables have been processed every two weeks, I believe. Right, Nathan. and that doesn't really align with trying to produce a monthly financial report.
and we also think it would be a lot more efficient for the staff to, to handle it that way. So we had a conversation about that the other day. And it ended up being good timing. They had just processed payables. So we'll we'll leap ahead a month and then that's when we'll process the prior month's payables. So I think that will also help us.
Tera:
Makes sense to me. Do we have any history on why we were running it bi monthly
Nathan:
for the worst reason that we that you do anything? Because that's the way we always have.
Tera:
Well, I don't know. I mean, maybe that was more pertinent when we had, you know, big loans that we were paying off and things.
Nathan:
Yeah. One of the bigger drivers there is it just makes sure that, and that we are always well ahead of any due date on a bill is really the, the only thing that has driven that.
And so, contractors and vendors like to work with us a lot for a lot of reasons. But one of them is that we cut checks every two weeks. and so there are a couple of reasons, but none of them good, really. and then the other thing that that helps with is the when we're, you know, doing the like this report, it doesn't need to be bi weekly then either.
And so instead of really limiting the amount of communication, the number of communications while communicating the same amount of information will also be helpful for, for you guys and for me.
Tera:
Sounds good. Thank you.
Molly:
As you look at this and look at the different topics that we're proposing, we would discuss, certainly keep us informed if there are other things or different things that you would like to, to discuss. Our thought process was just that, not knowing how involved you've been with, with how the accounting and finance works, just giving you like a ten minute, synopsis, basically, of how these things are handled in the district.
Jason:
Can I make a suggestion to Nathan? Nathan, we all, you know, we're all in office 365 here. Could you create a calendar and share it with the board and put all this stuff in that calendar? That'd be helpful.
Tera:
So, just, selfishly, could I make a request? Because I'm going to be out June 18th, and I have been asking about our accounts payable transactions and payroll process for a while, especially sort of the, checks and balances there since there haven't traditionally been a lot.
So if we could either flip that with one before, flip that with, okay. I'm fairly fairly well versed in the overview of the district state compliance calendar, but somewhere, if you wouldn't mind moving that, because that's the topic that I'm particularly interested in.
Molly:
Okay, great. I'll do that.
Jim:
And I just have a comment and maybe you guys think about it in a similar light.
utility billing process, only because I think it's one of those things that we're probably going to give you, you know, sorry. That's go ahead and process at least my I think everybody's kind of in agreement. It's sort of silly for an electric bill to get voted on. You know, if it's, you know, if it's a bill and it's budgeted, is there any, any thought maybe and maybe it's too soon.
But if we move that further up the calendar, just, you know, if there's any benefit to that, if not, we'll leave it where it is. But I was just wondering if you had any comments on it.
Tera:
The utility billing process would be us billing our customers for our services right?
Nathan:
Yeah. So and so this is just this is just going like kind of like, like you said, just a ten minute overview of how those processes work.
Right. So it's it's not us paying our bills or anything, but it'll just be like a, like a cliff. Notes on this is how we build our customers, how we get meter reads, stuff like that.
Molly:
And one of the other things, kind of along all these lines of streamlining that we've discussed is the dates of the work session. And again, just wanting to make sure you have information ahead of time so that you can review it. there's a pretty tight turnaround between work session dates and board meeting dates, changing some of our processes and streamlining them.
We're thinking that it might, be advantageous to move the work sessions up or change the dates. I don't know. Nathan. Do you have anything that or. Paul.
Paul:
Yeah, I think we we're I think the idea was that we were thinking maybe a week before, what? They're currently scheduled at, would give us a little bit of time to digest what happens in the work session.
You know, I have two meetings that are within, you know, five days of each other. can be a little bit redundant. I don't know anything. What else are we kind of thinking of?
Nathan:
Yeah. That was, that was primarily. And so rather than have the, for example, you know, we do the board meeting on the fourth Monday like we do now and then the work session rather than the do it the previous Monday, do it to our previous Wednesday like two Wednesdays before that.
it does a couple things. One, it lines up better when we move all of our payables and bills. Bills are all in that monthly schedule. it helps things line up a little bit better on our end. And then there really is a pretty tight time crunch between Wednesday and Monday. There's basically three working days or two working days before that next board meeting.
And so especially as we're presenting financial documents or if, you know, like later tonight we're going to go over an expenditure request. it gives us or me in that example, just more time to either get more information or whatever it is that the board would like to see before we bring it back for approval. something really do we want to throw out to you guys and see what your thoughts are on it, and then we can bring it back at the meeting on Monday.
If you would like.
Tera:
So tell me that would be the second Wednesday of the month or
Nathan:
we'd have it'd be the way. The best way to do it would probably be to set it for two weeks prior. So the board meeting on the fourth Monday and then the study session two weeks prior. So you don't end up with the weird date shift.
And we have a board, you know, study session. Like I tried to throw it down on the calendar. That's the one that really makes the most the most sense.
Jim:
So essentially we're if we go forward with this, we meeting every two weeks, whether it's a meeting or a study session. Yep. Okay.
Jason:
Yeah, I think that probably makes sense. we can go ahead and, put that on the agenda for Monday night, then to have a vote on that.
Molly:
And then just one more thing to add. I talked about providing a budget actual or a set of financials. We also know there have been requests for additional information, additional, summarized information and, capital projects, information, that type of things. So we'll incorporate those as we move forward to this just kind of lays out just the basics right now.
Jim:
Yeah. That was mostly me. okay, I'll take the hit, but yeah, it was, you know, super, super top level. But you know, the way I run my programs at work is, you know, you have a schedule, you have your schedule, and then any of your cost items that align to that schedule. And so we always present a cost performance index and a schedule performance index.
So if you're projects on time, you're essentially saying your performance index is one. If your costs are aligning properly with the way you said you're going to spend your money, that's one. If you're overspend, then you're over one. If you're under spending, you're under one. I'm not saying you have to implement that, but the idea was essentially if we had budgeted something and the burn rate or the anticipated spending was, you know, 20% in February and, you know, 40% in April, and so on and so forth, literally just a line, you know, and where you are on the continuum, if you're above the line or below the line kind of thing, and really just stating, you
know, we anticipated spending $500,000 a year on this project. we currently only spent $300,000. Then right underneath there, there should be a one liner that says, you know, vendor couldn't get, you know, pipe in time. So we couldn't perform against the schedule. Just something simple that, you know, it wasn't meant to be onerous or crazy, but it was like we had all these projects going on, but you couldn't really poke at something and say, you know, we overspent or underspent and that was really the only intent.
And are we on schedule or we ahead of schedule or behind scales? That was that was the granularity I was really just trying to understand is where are we? You know, and that I'm not trying to make it a ton of work, but literally just total up the bills and say it was $1 million job and we spent 300,000, you know, and we were supposed to put in 500,000.
And Nathan kind of talked to what that $200,000 delta was. That was all I was really looking for to a certain extent.
Tera:
I'm wondering if some of our financials will do that, because if you're doing budget to actual and you have the percentage, right? I mean, they that should be somewhat visible. Obviously we've been operating without information for a while.
Molly:
So it will provide the financials will provide that type of information for your annual budgeting, expenditure items and revenue items. But I think what I'm hearing is like projects can cross fiscal years. And so there's like an inception to date reporting that that can happen. That's kind of outside of your your monthly financials I guess. So. So some some of it.
Yes. And then there could be additional reporting to.
Tera:
Thanks Molly.
Molly:
I mean I think that's it. Let's anybody had any further questions?
Jason
Guess not. Thank you very much.
So are we on item D now? The expenditure report requests.
Nathan:
we are. So I've got, two of them for you guys to bring in. the first one. so one, something to point out. this was, Paul recommendation, which I really like. So we're going to move into it. So, rather than having our vendors generally draft agreements that we review and sign, we're going to start using, what did you call this,
Paul:
a standard form of contract for independent contractors.
Describer:
On screen. An Independent contractor agreement, which will serve as a template for agreements signed with the district.
Paul:
And it doesn't have to be just for independent contractors to compete for other purposes. But, you know, the idea of, sorry, the idea is to have a standardized contract with standardized terms that the district can rely on. it's it's less expensive having me review every single contract. you know what I've done for other districts is, you know, you receive a scope of work, you include that as an exhibit A, that is still the scope of work, but it has all of our terms in there that that are more protective of the district.
you mean for example, if incorporated, I think it's in paragraph two here. sort of a form for, for change orders. you know, I mean, it gives the district some, some flexibility, you know, if there are certain, services that that go beyond the scope of services. this is a, you know, mechanism to deal with it in a very form, like, consistent manner.
you know, we've clarified in paragraph three that, you know, the this person is an independent contractor, not an employee, minimizes districts liability for certain things, insurance, taxes, workers compensation, that kind of stuff. There's there's no question, you know, that that they are an independent contractor and then just certain other other items may be protective, confidentiality, ownership of work.
That's something you're going to want to see in every single contract. indemnification, you know, this is a very clear indemnification provision, that that doesn't require, the district. There's no question that the district, you know, is under any obligation to indemnify, the independent contractor. at the same time, it has good substantive language, for the contractor and identifying the district.
I've added something that I didn't see in a, in a whole lot of these contracts, which is a default provision. paragraph eight. you know, if things don't go right, you need a you need a clear, you need a clear way to deal with it, you know, whether it's nonperformance, you know, whatever it is.
so I've included some explicit remedies, injunctions, specific performance, you know, payment, you know, things that can reinforce the reinforce the district's ability to enforce its own contracts. Its own contracts. and then, a couple other provisions here. I don't, you know, I won't go through every single one. A lot of these are standard, contract terms, but, annual appropriation, government immunity.
Yeah. Special districts, do not have the authority to enter into multi-year contracts. A good way to deal with that is you subject them to annual appropriation. So if you ever see that language, that's why you're seeing it's because the district can't enter into multi-year. So this way, when whatever contract you enter into, it's not a multi-year contract, it's always going to be subject to annual appropriations.
And it keeps the district out of trouble. yeah. I think that about covers the highlights. anybody has any questions on this? I'm happy to to answer them. But my my intent is to just use this going forward as a standard form of contract. And I can amend these pretty quickly for any sort of independent contractor contract. The district will see.
Tera:
So, I like the consistency of the contracts. in this one in particular, there's a inconsistency with the date. So in section five it's saying the agreements is commencing on January 9th, which is already past. Their letter of engagement also has that they obviously we are not doing this January 9th. So if you could look at that, I like where you put in.
That makes it very clear that we are the owner of their work product. Since they're doing it, we're paying for them to do it. and then my other question is, so give me an example of how we would use your change order form.
Paul:
Yep. So if there's any sort of additional work that's not included, within the scope of services, this is that this is the form that the contractor would, would fill out each time.
Tera:
and how does that get approved? Tell me the process.
Paul:
Yeah. So the well, there's, there's a number of ways that the board could do it. You could either delegate it to Nathan. or we could I could present this at a work session for review and then and then the regular meeting for approval. you know, there may be, you know, some nuance there, as to, you know, what you want to delegate to Nathan and what may be subject to approval.
So maybe there's some discussion there. It's it's a good point.
Nathan:
Yeah. I think that that's, now that you brought it up, I think that's something we could, probably address in our updates, the financial control policy. and so we could put, you know, some sort of limitation on there, whether we're just following the physical dollar amount or say, like, you know, change orders that are, you know, in aggregate, more than 10% of the contract require additional board approval, less than 10%.
I would have the authority to do or you could do it by a dollar amount or whatever. But I think that's something we could further clarify with that policy. Well, and the other
Tera:
I mean, in this instance, it seems kind of clear because it doesn't require any like engineering or anything. But when they want an engineering change order, what's that process going to be?
Or a more technical change order than something that's more of a straight forward contract like this?
Paul:
Yeah, I think no matter what, it would always boil down to to some figure, right? Some cost, you know, regardless of whether it's a technical change or whatnot, maybe you can you can just, kind of draw that line at, you know, the 10% over the contract amount, whatever it may be, regardless of it's, you know, technical or engineering or, you know, what have you, just always tie it to, to a certain dollar amount. So that's a suggestion.
Jim:
not that I've seen. I guess it's sort of in Nathan's purview. I had a question on, you know, this is our, you know, going to be our model for moving forward. And I'm think I'm okay with that. It looks very similar. A lot of stuff I've seen, two questions. One is, is something that you currently or have used in the past.
And then the second thing is on a emergency basis where we have, you know, something, you know, emergent problem, water leak, you know, something happens that's significant. is this also applicable in those circumstances or how do we want to handle it?
Paul:
Yeah. And that would still fall under the the financial controls policy because, you know, to the extent it's an emergency, it boils down to what sort of authorization does Nathan have.
And that's under the financial controls policy. I don't think this would necessarily
Tera:
do we have an emergency clause? I think we do.
Paul:
We do. Yep, yep. That's right. oh, and by the way, in to, to respond to the, the term. Yeah, the commencing on January 9th, I wasn't sure what to do with that one, to be honest with you. I saw the January 9th on the scope of of work that we were provided and know if that date had some sort of significance or whatnot, the way I was when they prepared it or when they were fitting it,
Tera:
I think they came to our January. Okay. And so that that was why.
Paul:
And I the way I sort of split the baby was, you know, I at the beginning I put the district is entering into the contract on March 24th and you'll be voting on it.
But yeah, I'll change that to March 24th. Just keep it consistent.
Jim:
And, just back to my first question again. So this is something that you use pretty standard.
Paul:
Sorry, Jim. so sort of, this isn't, identical to anything that I've necessarily used before. I've taken, I've taken different contracts that I have used and I've combine them into this one. so it is a bit newer in that regard, but I've taken, I've taken all of the terms that would apply to independent contractor agreements, and incorporate them into this. So it's new, but it's, you know, it's, it's, you know, got a lot of it. It has, provisions that are, that are quite standard.
Jim:
And I was just looking for you had a good basis to, to generate this document.
Paul:
That's. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Paul:
So anybody else have any questions on the contract?
Jason:
I don't think so. Yeah. So, for the proposal then.
Nathan:
So we're this is, we're looking at Sigler Communications. So the board had asked me to meet with Sigler and kind of follow up and see what kind of basically take them up on their offer, their in their proposal to see what we could do to formalize the budget or to minimize the budget.
so they they moved down a little bit on the budget. A lot of that was helpful once they got kind of a good understanding of what we already have. So they were really pleased to see that we had some good form stuff already, like the Consumer Confidence Report and a lot of things they weren't going to need to regenerate.
and then the other thing that they clarified in terms of how the contract works was, that their $100,000 here is basically a, not a basically, it is a, not to exceed number rather than, contractual obligation to do that every month. And so that that gives us a lot of some more wiggle wiggle room or breathing room as we kind of go through the year.
There's going to be things that we have have a heavier lift, kind of like we did with H2 initially. you know, putting together the communications plan. we have an emergency communications plan, but it certainly needs augmented. So doing those kinds of things will have more of a financial commitment to them as we get started than we will moving forward.
so they came down a little bit over $8,000 from the original proposal, clarified that that would be a not to exceed number. And then moving forward, the idea would be that as we become more efficient, the better off we'll do. They did have some, a couple other suggestions that we can talk to the board if they if Sigler is the firm that you guys ultimately decide to go with.
one of them was like, you know, for a communications perspective, we could probably save a significant amount of money if we they did like a quarterly report to the board rather than a monthly. We're just not paying employee and drive time so we can kind of get in first of the year, go every quarter, physically have somebody here to go through.
And then just a monthly update. So there's a lot of, ideas that they already had to kind of help, minimize the and the cost to us. other than that, I really like, you know, I really like Sigler. I think that, the two firms that we ended up getting presentations for, both of them were fantastic.
but Sigler really just did seem to have that, like local, very industry specific, knowledge. And so with those, I guess I just need to know if you guys have any other questions if you'd like me to seek any additional information from Sigler. and if you want me to bring this contract, the other contract, or both of them for approval at the meeting on Monday.
Leah:
Speaking for myself, I would be supportive. bringing the Sigler contract to the board meeting on Monday to vote on, I, I don't think we need to have both.
Nathan:
one more clarification while I'm looking through this. the other thing that I did ask there was, probably fairly minimal concern about, lack, for lack of a better term, bait and switch on the staff that they present.
this is all of their staff. So they don't have anybody to bait and switch out. so what you see is what you get.
Jason:
Nathan. I don't see what this says. It's not to exceed, did you do you for this thing? It's it's.
Paul:
That's not included in the contract. So. It's in the contract? Yeah, I included,
Nathan:
Paul included it in the contract.
Paul:
It's, it's in paragraph two of that, of the standardized contract that drafting.
Nathan
Oh, he didn't go on the mike. So I'll say it's in paragraph, paragraph two of the standardized contract that he drafted. Okay. Thanks.
Jason:
I'm also in favor of, bringing this contract to the next board meeting.
Tera:
I don't have any further questions, and, I think we should. Sounds good.
Jim:
I'd like to see it on Monday.
Describer:
On screen.
Memorandum
From: Nathan J. Travis
To: CPNMD Board of Directors
Date: 3/19/2025
Re: Well A-2 Repair and Installation
Vendor: Layne Enterprises
Contract Amount: $129,300.00
Need and Purpose of Expenditure
Well A-2, located on the east side of Monarch Blvd south of Castle Pines Parkway, has failed. The driveshaft of the well sheered, rendering the well inoperable. This is a high producing well, and as such is a key asset utilized heavily for water production in the summer months.
The existing pump will be sent to a facility in Wyoming for inspection, and repair as necessary prior to reinstallation. We will be installing a larger diameter drive shaft, and replacement seal to make the well equipment more robust.
Alternative Means
Re-Drilling: This would have a much higher cost of around 1.5 to 2 million dollars. We have inspected the well column to ensure that there are no conditions that would require the well to be re-drilled and are confident that moving forward with the repair is the appropriate course of action.
Purchase new equipment instead of refurbishing: This option was discussed and considered with input from
Kennedy Jenks. Because the equipment is relatively new, inspecting and refurbishing the equipment is the best option.
Warranty Repair: Because of the age of the equipment (about 2 years old) we also submitted the failure to the manufacturer to see if these repairs could be completed under warranty, however this request was denied because there is no evidence of a failure due to workmanship, or material defects. Both Layne Enterprises and Kennedy Jenks agree with this conclusion.
Alternative Proposals
No alternative proposals were sought. However, this proposal has been evaluated by the district engineer, Kennedy Jenks, and it is their recommendation that we move forward with approval, noting that the cost is in line with expectations for the work being performed, and that there is not a significant value is prolonging the repair, in search for a better price.
KJ performed a comprehensive evaluation including failure data, well trending data, mechanical components, electrical supply, pump curves, and communications information. Ultimately determining that the most likely cause of the failure is a programming issue with the electrical supply. In the simplest terms, the well appears to have been starting and stopping too quickly. As such, we will also be re-programming the drive and adding some additional fail-safe’s in both the drive, and our communications programs.
Long Term Planning Considerations
This well is vital to continuing operations and water production. We anticipate that this will extend the life of the asset an additional 10 years, standard for this type of equipment.
Nathan:
We'll do it. as well. Monday would be good. I. All right then. the next one that I have that I'll be bringing to the board Monday.
This is an expenditure request for A2. We've been talking about this one for a while. this is the well that we have, a capital replacement and the potential capital replacement in the budget for some a million and a half dollars. we have inspected the well equipment, inspected the well, did some sand testing, make sure that it's not an actual problem with the the well casing pipe.
So we're fairly confident that that's not the issue. so this one did break a drive shaft, which is fairly unusual, especially for a well of this size. eight Lane, who's been, excuse me.
Describer:
Nathan Back on screen.
Nathan:
The Lane, who has been the contractor on this one from the beginning, eventually came back and said that they would that their what they would like to do, is to take the well equipment that we've already pulled, send the pump in the motor to a testing facility in Wyoming. get it inspected, repaired, if necessary.
Bring it back down and reinstall it. the primary changes that they're looking at is a bigger seal where the shaft kind of goes into the motor. and then a larger, larger drive shaft as well to kind of help with that, try and prevent it from breaking again. I didn't want to I can't this one's there's been a lot of conversation about this.
So rather before I brought it to the board, I sent it to Kennedy Jenks. Emily Hootish, who is kind of their in-house, well, expert. And so she, along with myself and Lane and, see, Semacore had a few meetings on it just to kind of discuss what could potentially be doing this. What we wanted to make sure is like one, we don't spend $130,000, drop all this well, equipment back in the ground and then have it snap again.
and then to make sure, because we're I didn't look for any other alternative providers because Lane's been on this one since the beginning, that this is in the price range for industry standard for what we would expect. So we wanted to make sure that the number that they were giving us is what we would see if we went anywhere else.
A2 is a big producing. Well, for us, it's it's one that we use a lot in the summer, especially during our peak demand times. and so it's really important to kind of get it back on line before summer or as early into summer as best we can to. And so we don't want to lose a lot of time trying to go bid it out multiple places.
So, Kennedy Jenks looked at the pricing. They were comfortable. didn't think that there was any significant benefit in just been shopping. This especially since Lane's already been on there. we looked at a ton of different, well, data, and it seems like the far and away the most likely culprit is actually a programing issue with the electrical drive.
Basically, they think the well may have been turning on and turning off too fast. So you're getting kind of a stop. Start with the water hammer. So after we get this reinstalled, we've got, mountain peaks. Who is the integrator that we use for all of this stuff. And then Principal Electric are going to be looking, through all of the programing inside of the drive to make sure that the ramp up and ramp down are acceptable.
They're going to be adding some additional, kind of, preventative measures. one of the, one of the issues that we saw with it when we went back and looked at the trending data when it failed, is that it actually stopped producing water like five hours before it shut off. And so the that and that was a programing issue inside the drive that really should have been connected to a flow rate.
So if you see the flow rate drop to zero the drive should have been turning off. That didn't make it worse in this case, but that's certainly something that could have caused an issue, down the line, if there was a blockage or somebody, somebody closed a valve and that, well, isn't told to run when that, you know, if you close the valve on a line and the well sees that flow drop to zero, it really needs to either shut off on the flow dropping or the pressure dropping, because otherwise it's going to deadhead and it can break all kinds of stuff.
So there's a bunch of programing things that we'll do in conjunction with this. All that to say, oh, I could just go through the alternative means. So, basically the alternative means we could re drill the well, you know, that would cost a million and a half dollars. And there's really no justification for going down that route.
the other thing that we looked at is rather than refurbishing this equipment, is purchasing brand new. There's, very often the kind of a nominal price difference between the two, in this case, because the, well, equipment is only about a year and a half, two years old, there's no real advantage to purchasing new. We can capture quite a bit of savings, just sending what we've got back up and getting it inspected and fixed.
Because it's so young. We did you a, do it, put in a request to get the driveshaft replaced under warranty. They denied the warranty because there was no material defect in the drive shaft. There's nothing to say that it was a workmanship or, material issue. Lane agreed with that. Lane agreed with that conclusion.
Kennedy Jenks also agreed with that conclusion. I talked before about why we didn't, go into any of the alternative proposals and then the long term planning considerations on this one. Pretty straightforward. It's a big well, it makes a lot of water. We need to get it in there. and then they were also fairly confident this isn't going to significantly deteriorate using the reusing the existing equipment wasn't going to significantly deteriorate the lifespan of the well.
So we're not going to end up paying for that on the back end. So after we get it installed, we'd expect another ten years or so before we need to do a significant rehab or, equipment replacement.
Leah:
I have a quick
Tera:
That was a good summary.
Leah:
Yeah. I have a quick question. and and also, for me personally, I think having everything document it here, like, I'm okay if, if you don't walk through it I'm Okay, you know, maybe just address questions from the board like, as needed or like a quick summary. But, I was curious who who programs to drive it.
Nathan:
The this drive was programed by a company called Inc designs that we no longer use for performance issues.
Leah:
Okay, because I was just thinking, like a, well, two years old, not covered under warranty, $130,000.
We think it might be a programing issue. I mean, do we have any recourse there if, if it if it was a programing issue?
Nathan:
I can...Paul.
Paul:
I mean I'd have to look at the contract, off the top of it and I just don't know. I mean, yeah, I would have to like the contract. Get back to Monday.
Jim:
I got one. I'm going to geek out a little bit on you. Do you have any pictures of the actual fracture and what that looks like? And if you do, can you forward it to me?
Nathan:
I can get them for you.
Jim:
And then if, you could also look at the fracture face of the drive shaft itself.
I wouldn't mind looking at that. And I could probably play some games with some photos software, because you can tell a lot about looking at the fracture front as it moves through the drive shaft itself to determine how it failed and how long it was cracking for.
Nathan:
That I can do. I know it was a torsional failure, but I don't know how long it was going, but I'll look at it.
Jim
Okay. Of course is torsional, but I mean, it's a but, it was a fracture at a 45.
Nathan:
It's a straight shot all the way down.
Jim:
I mean, the actual broken drive shaft.
Nathan:
I see what you're saying. I don't remember off the top of my head, but, yeah, you know.
Jim:
Thanks.
Leah:
Do we have do we have additional wells that were programed by the same company?
Nathan:
We do. We're looking at all of them. Okay. so we had a very, And we don't have enough information on this yet, but as we've gone through the Wells Vault rehab program, part of it was to kind of chase some of this stuff out. we had a failure at a different Wells site, which they're all Arapahoe wells, ironically enough, a one, had a failure that appeared similar to it.
I actually got a call from Principal Electric. They were out there looking at that today. there was. I can't remember the technical stuff. Basically, there's a component inside that was consistently feeding one leg of power down to the pumping motor. So they're probably gonna have to inspect that just to make sure that we didn't get anything. So that one wasn't a program issue.
It was an actual component inside the drive cabinet. and then, well, a three, we're currently working through, to see what's going on with that one. Why it wouldn't start back up. that was just last week, so we haven't had a chance to dig into it, but we're going to have, Mountain Peaks and Principal Electric are going to go through all of our soft starts and drives just to make sure that we don't have any similar issues across.
And that was part of the scope of the, those like checking those kind of programing configurations as part of the scope of the, well, vault rehab program anyway.
Jason:
Yes. All right. Very good. Hear other questions? All right. Thanks, Nathan.
Nathan:
I hope I'll it's up to you in.
Describer:
On screen.
CASTLE PINES NORTH METROPOLITAN DISTRICT DOUGLAS COUNTY, COLORADO
Resolution No. 2025-01- A RESOLUTION OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS TO AMEND THE DISTRICT’S RULES AND REGULATIONS
Recitals
A. The Castle Pines North Metropolitan District (the “District”) was organized as a
special district pursuant to an Order of the District Court in and for Douglas County, Colorado; and
B. The District is authorized by C.R.S. § 32-1-1001(1)(m) to adopt rules and regulations for the management, control and operations of its water and sanitary sewer system; and
C. The District adopted Rules and Regulations dated October 15, 2015 (the “Rules and Regulations”) subject to later amendments; and
D. It is the policy of the District's Board of Directors that "growth and development within
the District's boundaries, or areas to be included within the District's boundaries, must pay for itself."
See, Rules and Regulations, Section 1.2 Policy. The future health, safety and welfare of the District
and its residents will likely depend on acquiring renewable water resources.
NOW THEREFORE, the District Board has adopted this Resolution to amend the Rules and Regulations and it is RESOLVED as follows.
I. Paragraph 2.6.1 is added to Article 2, Definitions stating:
2.6.1 Comprehensive Water Report: An expert report containing all of the information required by Section 3.11 and any other information required by the District's legal counsel, Engineer or Manager.
II. Paragraph 6.3 is amended to add the following sentence:
All property not currently receiving District service and seeking to include into the District Boundary must provide a Comprehensive Water Report of water resources and demonstrate ownership of, and legal right to convey to the District renewable water, as determined in the sole discretion of the District. The Comprehensive Water Report shall demonstrate that the renewable water resources identified are sufficient to serve the inclusion property without detriment to the District’s existing water
supply or financial resources. The Comprehensive Water Report shall further demonstrate that the inclusion property will be fully served by renewable water, as determined in the sole discretion of the District.
III. Paragraph 7.3.3 is amended by deleting subparagraph 10 and replacing it with the
following:
10. "Other water rights associated with the property" required by subparagraph 5 shall include sufficient renewable water resources to serve the inclusion property as
{00793368} 2 determined by the District in its sole discretion upon review of the water demand study
required by subparagraph 9.
11. Any additional information required by the District.
IV. These amendments take precedence over any inconsistent or ambiguous provisions of the Rules and Regulations concerning the same subject matter.
V. The amendments shall be incorporated into the Rules and Regulations and the cover page shall indicate that the Rules and Regulations were adopted and amended by this Resolution effective immediately upon adoption. ADOPTED AND APPROVED THIS 24th DAY of MARCH, 2025.
Paul:
All right, so the very end of this packet, last three pages is a, Sorry, I keep doing that to thank for, On the last three pages of the packet, you'll find, an amended version of the renewable water, resolution that we had discussed at the last board meeting. I've bolded and underlined the additions that I made to it.
just for clarity today, it won't actually look like this on Monday. but as you can see, we accounted for the issue that we ran into with with the hidden point inclusion, already providing service to them. Obviously we don't want to impose any sort of renewable requirements. So the way that we dealt with that, was the incorporation of that of that language right at the beginning.
There, all property, not currently receiving district service and seeking to include, you know, that way we're not singling out single point in this resolution, you know, or anybody else. It's, just a clean way if you are, you're seeing service, then you don't have to provide this. When I was, when I had a discussion with the Hidden Point district manager, a couple of weeks back, or.
Describer:
Paul on screen.
Paul:
I'm sorry, not hidden point, with Jam Ranch. They they had a question about the renewable water resolution and whether, it it mandated 100% renewable water. So, you know, but I expressed to them, I said, yes, you know, our interpretation is that it is. But to get ahead of that, if that is ever an issue in the future, I included some additional language at the bottom there.
Paragraph 6.3. that states that the Comprehensive Water Report shall further demonstrate that the inclusion property will be fully served by renewable water, as determined in the sole discretion of the district. So clarifies that it has to be fully served by renewable water 100%. And to the extent there's any sort of question, the district has the sole discretion to determine whether it fits that or not.
So I think that, that kind of cleanly, you know, takes care of that issue to the extent that it may have ever surfaced in the future. And and it takes care of, the hidden point inclusion as well.
Tera:
And you like fully, because that leaves more discretion than 100%.
Paul:
I think either one would be fine. I'm happy to put 100%.
yeah. It's not. I mean, it may be more clear, if the board's if, you know, that's fine by me. Actually, if the board wants to see it 100%, I can include that. As you know, instead.
Tera:
I think there's less room for, debate over a number 100% other than fully. Because fully. Sounds like you could take that to court and argue whether it was fully or not.
Paul:
You know, I probably could.
Tera:
I'm not a lawyer. And if I don't see one on TV. So now you're.
Jim:
Yeah, I think the I'm with you. I 100% agree with Tara here.
Paul:
Yeah. Jim, I think 100% kind of word. Jim. I think you mean you fully agree that. That took me a second. I agree, I think it's better that way. All amended 200% presented on Monday.
And as a as a small update here, since I was talking about Hidden Point, the intent was to present you with an agreement, for the hidden point inclusion. The board of Hidden Point would like to meet first before they agree to, to the final version of the agreement that we have. It's it's final. It's ready to go.
They just need to bless it at their next meeting. So as soon as they do that, I'll. I'll bring it up at the next board meeting.
Jason:
Completely understandable. All right. Was that, conclude? Yeah. Sorry. Yeah.
Nathan:
Just one other thing that I think it's helpful to point out. just so the board's aware, the all property not currently receiving district service, that is current right now, that's only hidden point And the buffalo enclosure. So that's really the only the only two properties that are carved out by this.
Leah:
I just had a quick reminder. district manager annual review. So, Nathan, it looks like you did your self review. If it's okay with you, I can copy and paste it into the form. And then I can add the rest of the board as collaborators to that form. So we will all be able to see his responses.
And then per the calendar that we agreed on at the end of this month, we should each submit our review of Nathan. And so I, I think the best way to do it to be compliant is Nate. Like, if I send you the link to the form and then you can send it all to us and then like we just fill in the form and then again, I can add all of us as collaborators so we can all see each other's responses unless we don't want to see each other responses.
And it's just whoever, like the district president or the like, we could just make sure you see all the responses.
Jason:
I think all of us should be able to see the responses. I think we're pretty open. open body.
Tera:
So as long as that doesn't create any kind of open meeting, what if we're all looking at an online tool with everyone's responses?
Leah:
You know, terrorism, legal fight.
Paul:
There are.
Tera:
So yeah, I need to cut back on Matlock now.
Paul:
You're doing pretty good today. Yeah. No, don't keep watching it. There are there are enumerated exceptions to when board members, can email each other. This may fall under it. I will confirm whether that's the case and send an email to the board.
Leah:
I mean, if that's the case and I can like I would obviously be, an admin because I created the forum and I could add just Jason and then we could, we could also think through another way to export those responses and share them with the board. If like having access to a central forum is a problem.
Jim:
I mean, I kind of already filled it out and I just did a save, but I didn't submit yet because I wasn't quite sure about submitting.
Leah
So if you submit it. If you submit it now, only I can see it.
Tera:
I don't know that what the process would look like. I just think if we're all going into a document, because that's not anyway that's on you, you figure it out.
Paul:
Then, yeah. And you know, you are communicating with each other, you know, communicating there maybe. so yeah, I'll, I'll let you know before the next board meeting.
Jason:
So are we going to be doing an executive session if we can't do this to, to discuss this?
Paul:
That's right.
Jason:
Okay. Yep. All right. Any other questions? Hearing none. We will go ahead and adjourn the meeting. Thank you, everybody, for coming.