Village of Mantua
Finance Committee Meeting
February 11, 2010

Call to Order: 6:30 P.M.

Roll Call: Linda Clark, Ben Prescott, Roger Hawkins

Others: Clerk-Treasurer Jenny August, Mayor Donna Hawkins.

Appointment of Committee Chairperson:
Ben Prescott stated that he would like to be Chairperson for the next year. Linda Clark nominated Ben as Chairperson, Roger Hawkins seconds. No other nominations. Linda Clark and Roger Hawkins vote yes, Ben abstains.

Minutes:

• Ben asked Linda about the cost to fix the jet truck. Linda said she has numbers, but not with her.

• Ben said the new handbook will show overtime after 40 hours, not 8. Roger disagrees with this. Ben said they will vote.

• Linda said McCoy is now on a “will call” basis for cleaning out the holding tank at the Service garage.

• Linda said with the Lions refrigerator unplugged, the electric bill has dropped about $10. We can also lower the thermostat at the Park Lodge to 45 when it is not in use. She said Ed is waiting for Council to direct him to turn off the Mercury light by the building. Harry did not have a problem with it. Ben and the Mayor let Linda know that she has the authority in Service meetings to tell Ed to do something.

• Linda wondered if Michele has looked into the Time Warner Cable contract. Time Warner told a resident they could not get out to repair their cable for two weeks. Linda said it looks like the contract rolls over automatically. Donna thought it might be every two years, which would be this year. The contract may be up this year, so Linda thinks we should have Michele negotiate free internet for the Village departments.

Motion to approve the Minutes from the January meeting by Roger Hawkins, seconded by Ben Prescott. Linda abstained because she was not officially part of the committee during the January meeting. Both ayes on vote.

Financial Reports:

Jenny gave the Financial reports. The Fund status at the end of January was $186,165. We will see some nice increases as the Income Taxes start rolling in. Revenues were $104,022. Expenses totaled $90,821. There were no fund adjustments. Water and Sewer reconciled exactly, as did Income Tax, and the bank reconciliation went through with no adjusting factors. We are still in the negative in Water and Sewer, and even worse because we did not even take in enough money for the January transfers. The good news is that next week we can expect some large customers to pay their bills, such as Mantaline, and Crestwood Schools. Hopefully we can catch up a little bit. Ben said a school district was put on Fiscal Watch and was just moved to Fiscal Emergency because they were not able to get themselves out. Jenny has to send reports to Local Government Services every month, and they can see that we are having trouble.

Legislation:

Ben reviewed the legislation that will be presented at the Council meeting Tuesday.

• 2009-60 Amending the Codified Ordinances to change the evaluations to annually instead of quarterly.

• 2009-65- Authorizing Jenny to attend Public Records training on behalf of the Village employees.

• 2009-67, 68, 69 should be tabled. We can’t pass these until the Public hearing in March.

• 2010-06, 07, and 08 can go second reading, then we can suspend the rules after the hearing and pass them on second reading. Donna said regarding 2010-07 she would like to change the fees for a Variance hearing. She would like to add $50 to cover secretarial fees, bringing the charge to $150 for a hearing. Ben said it should be approved at Planning and amend the ordinance in March.

• 2010-03 Resolution that $50,000 from electric company goes into street repairs. This was tabled last month.

• 2010-09 Ben said there was an 80/20 match. This was a meeting put on by Lou Bertrand. He met with Harold Huff and Commissioner Keiper, and President Chema from Hiram College. This was a district needs assessment. Donna didn’t know why the County was involved since they are already a district. Ben said they want regionalization. Donna asked if there would be a match, and President Chema said no. Ben said we don’t have the money to do this. Jenny said she spoke with Kay and she also said there is a match. Donna said she agrees with Ben.

• 2010-10 Allowing the Mayor to explore a grant for the Southwest Quadrant. The Mayor said La Tourette’s office told Jim Rogers that $600,000 was set aside for Main Street. The Highway bill has the $600,000 for the above ground. The Appropriations bill is for the infrastructure, water & sewer. While exploring this, Donna discovered that she could tell them that she could determine that the Southwest Quadrant is more needy, and Ed Trego agreed. This money from the Appropriations is 100 % funding, no cost whatsoever, and can be used as we determine. Ben said it should be tabled and run through Planning first. Donna said she is Chairman of Planning and disagrees. There is a deadline for Friday after Council to apply. Linda wants to call and get information. Donna recommended that she calls Rich. Donna said Dino from La Tourette’s office will tell her to tell them what we need. Linda and Ben both said they need more information. Ben said the Highway bill has a 20% match.

Bills of Resolution:

• Roger feels we need to get more estimates. Jenny said we appropriated $6200 for Streets and already we are down to $235. Roger feels they are not watching out. Even though nobody agreed on spending that much, it was done quickly. Jenny said the Service Department typically spends first and then faxes up a Purchase Requisition. Jenny said they bought 6 jugs of washer fluid for $24. Ed said it was a special kind with silicon for the trucks. Ben and Linda said we don’t need anything special. We should be buying stuff like that in 55 gallon drums. Linda said we should have Mantua Auto parts make us a hydraulic line and our part-timers could put it on. Ben said we need to put a stop to this. Linda said the Service Committee needs to express our concerns to Ed. Linda Clark suggested we hire Bob Fathaur as a part time mechanic. He is a very good mechanic and could save us money. He is semi retired.

• Ben asked about line 16 Middlefield Bank Visa – Quartermaster- What is it? Jenny said it is Pepper spray.

• Linda asked about Line 20. Do we really need pagers? Ben asked who has pagers. Linda said Ed, Tom, Harry, a spare in the drawer at Service, and maybe one in the Police cars. Linda asked Ed and he responded that Council told him he should have both in case he is in a dead zone. Linda said we could call his land line. Ben said to ask Harry if he needs it. The pager in the drawer is in case one breaks they will have backup. Linda and Ben disagreed. They are not necessary.

• Linda asked about line 29. What are the Parks wages for? Jenny said it may be for plowing the lot. Roger wondered if there should be an extra fee during the winter lodge rentals for plowing. Linda said we need Jenny to make us a spreadsheet showing how much that Park Lodge costs us, and Donna said it would determine if we should raise the rates. Jenny said we are already higher than everyone else unless you are a resident.

• Linda Clark questioned line 104, the C.T. Consultant invoice. Did we get anything from them regarding the five hours? Jenny said it is in your Council packet. They explain the five hours and are asking for work authorization to continue the Glacial Esker project. Linda said their contract is up next month.

• Roger asked about line 61, auditor fee’s, how much we went over on the audit. Jenny said at least $10,000. Ben said we should look into a private audit next time. Jenny said if we are on Fiscal Watch, we may not have a choice. We paid for the intern Zach, then Brian to check and re-do Zach’s work, then Tonya to work on the same stuff, and Gary Alger to review Tonya’s work. It was ridiculous. We gave them information they requested several times over and over, depending on who was working on it. Jenny said this should be our last bill. We all agreed that we will try to get a private auditor next time.

• Roger asked about snow removal assistance. Jenny said we asked Stamm’s to truck some snow out.

• Roger asked about line 112, some type of card, if Hiram should pay for this. Jenny looked at the bill, and it stated static problems on our equipment, and a weekend call from Service.

• Linda questioned lines 92 and 126- Why isn’t Service using Crestwood Schools for supplies. Jenny said they go to Mantua Drug for dish soap, who does that? Linda Clark asked about the Village ordering office supplies from the schools. Jenny said that Linda had asked Jenny to send a memo to each Department Head requesting a list of supplies used, toner, etc., so we could get cost comparisons from the school. Jenny said she did not get it out in a timely manner because of deadlines for Final returns being mailed out and other things coming up, but she did send it about a week ago and hopes to hear back from them soon.

• Linda asked about line 147- Storm Sewers. We spent money from the Storm Sewer fund on wages. She needed clarification on whether this could be used for wages. She thought it was only for actual repairs, not shoveling off storm drains. We used to have Storm Sewer O&M funded by General Fund. Jenny said our current Storm Sewer fund is an Enterprise Fund, not a Capital Improvement Fund. Typically in years back, we spent about $2,000 on wages. Since this fund generates $6,000 per year, we hoped to have $4,000 per year to do improvements, and then just upkeep. Donna said maybe he is trying to relieve the Water & Sewer wage fund. Roger said it would be fraud if he charged the wrong fund for work that another fund should be paying for. Ben said it probably could have come out of Streets so the Storm Sewer fund can build up.

• Roger asked if Tiffany Olson’s meter tested okay. Donna said it did. Ben said she had a lot more fault by not paying her bill.

Motion to recommend the Bills of Resolution to Council by Roger, seconded by Ben. All ayes on vote.

Other Discussion:

$50,000 Grant Money

• Ben said we need to get the Sewer fund out of the red, and fix the pumps, and fix the jet truck. We should use the $50,000 to pay bills. Ben said we need to get more bids on the jet truck. Linda said her thoughts are that we shouldn’t worry about what we will spend the money on when we don’t even know if we will get the money. If we get it, we should split it up. Ben said to leave it tabled.

• Donna said she knows a company that may jet our storm drains if we allow them to dump in our sewer facility. Jenny asked why we don’t have other companies like McCoy or other septic tank cleanout companies dump in our plant and charge a fee. Donna said we need to get our plant up to snuff and use it as a dumping plant. Donna said we can trade dumping for jetting our storm drains. Linda said we should ask Bob Fathauer to fix the jet truck.

Citizens:

No citizens attended.

Motion to adjourn at 7:54 P.M. by Roger, seconded by Linda. All ayes on vote.

___________________________
Ben Prescott, Chair of Finance

___________________________
Jenny August, Clerk-Treasurer