I'd like to welcome you all to the Chatfield City Council meeting in March. Join me in the pledge of allegiance. I 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. Welcome, everybody. Item three, approve agenda. Michelle has I do I'd like to ask for an agenda item addition, and that would be the contract with SCH for water tank. I'm sorry. Water tank replacement tech memo and funding assistance. Either staff recommendation to make a motion to approve.
And I'm sorry. That would be under new business. Sorry. I'll make the motion. Motion that Paul Second. For a second. Second by Dave. He filled the discussion. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? K. Item four with the addition, looking for a motion to approve. So moved. Motion by Josh. Looking for a second. Second. Second. Any other discussion? All those in favor? I have. Opposed? Perfect. 95. Audit presentation. Kaylee, come on up. I'm Kaylee Lentz from Smith Schafer. I'm one of the auditors that works on the audit for the city. We met with Kaye and Michelle earlier to go over the financial statements in greater detail. And tonight,
I'm gonna go through the PowerPoint in a more summarized version. Just wanted to point out that these are still in draft format because we are waiting on the fire relief, statewide pension reports that still haven't been released yet. So other than that, I don't think we'll probably have any changes in the actual things we're gonna go over in the report today. So starting with the audit opinion, we're issuing an unmodified opinion which is a clean opinion. It means we feel the financial statements are fairly stated in accordance with Gap. Minnesota legal compliance, we test various areas like collateral held at the bank, bids throughout the year, and the letters that we send all the council members to disclose to us if
they have any conflicts of interest, and we had no exceptions with this testing. The management letter, we have two comments as usual, the segregation of duties just due to the size of the accounting staff, at the city, and then preparation of the financial statements just means that you rely on miss Schafer to help repair those financial statements. Those both are common at, all of our cities that we work on. Taxable tax capacity, has increased to $2,900,000 and this continues to increase as our property values have increased since the city. The revenues, general property tax collections at $2,500,000.
We brought the levy up about 143,000 this year. As you can see on the chart, the next one, Michelle, one more. Is it not working? It's no. It's just delayed. Oh, sorry. No. It's okay. Okay. So, you can see that it did not increase by the same amount is because last year in 2023, we had Lone Stone TIF was decertified for about a hundred and 23,000. So we're in so it actually decreased from last year because of that additional revenue that we received in 2023. The property tax levy, is a mix between the general fund and the debt service levy. So the general fund there in the blue and the debt service in the yellow.
So you You can see the general fund stayed about the same. We did bring the debt service levy up due to the 2023, bond coming on. So the tax rate total for 2024, '80 '6 point '5. You can see that's lower than it was in 2017, but we did have a shift in the tax. So in 2021, we were heavier on the debt service levy. Tax increment revenues, TIF collections were about $30,000 this year and, brought down this when we decertify the Lone Stone TIF. The local government aid or LGA revenues that come in from the state have remained pretty flat over several several years.
We did see a pretty nice increase of 82,000 this year up to 949,000. So that's about 17, point 7% of the city's total governmental revenues and 32% of the general fund revenues. LGA is gonna increase again next year, but just by about $900 Do you won't see that as big of an increase? Governmental fund revenues all, combined there, the sources. So you have the tax increment there in the lighter blue, general fund, property tax levy, that's your most significant there in the yellow. LGA is pretty flat there in the dark blue from the state. Our charges for services in the in the light gray,
that's your pool, your ambulance, your fire, and then the light blue, your interest in market value adjustment. That's just a paper adjustment. It's the interest revenue that your your investment balances are at at the end of the year. However, usually hold your investments to maturity so we're not really recognizing that revenue until we sell it. And then our assessments there you can barely even see so it's such a small amount. Our expenditures for our governmental funds starting with the general government. This includes the mayor and council elections, clerks, your municipal building, totaled 789,000. So we were down primarily due to planning and zoning in 2023 as well as
additional employee costs related to the change over in the city administrator and the recruitment cost for that position. Public works expenditures remained, pretty flat at 530,000. Park and rec. This is your park, Rex, the van, the swimming pool, tourism, totaled about 400,000 up about 11,000. We bought a mower and our pool and park salaries increased from $20.23. Community developments, our EDA, our historical society, our Chatfield, Center for the Arts, totaled about 679,000 up about 216,000 from the prior year. We had all of the EZ Fab revolving loans were paid off as well as
the transportation management organization program funding became, we recorded it differently due to it being a passer of the city. This year, they changed the programming. Just to note, that's basically just you have the expense, but you get the offsetting revenues reimbursed back to you. This slide only shows the expenditures. So we have an additional 150,000 related to that transportation project that we wouldn't have had in the past related to that, but we do have the offsetting revenue to cover those increased costs. Public safety expenditures, total 1,200,000.0. This is your police, your fire, your ambulance.
So it's above about 54,000. We had increased wages in the ambulance and the police. Library, expenditures about 311,000. In the yellow there, we had 27,000 of the capital. That's our books and, books and nonprint materials. We also had a furnace, cost this year. The blue is your operating expenses there. We had some additional salary costs with, some overtime as well as, a position going full time. Governmental fund expenditures not including your capital outlay. So across the bottom, the different categories starting with your general government. Down this year, as I mentioned, the planning and zoning fees last year were higher as well as our city administrator
recruitment costs. Public safety was up with the ambulance and police wages increasing. Publix works remain pretty flat. Slight increase in the parks and rec with the purchase of the mower and the pool and park salaries up. Library up with the cost of salaries and then community development That is impacted year to year based on when the city does loans. So there can be varying expenses there. This year up related to that transportation management organization as well as those loans for easy fab being all paid off. Moving into the reserves. So the general fund fund balance.
Now this is on full accrual basis here. So the percentage for your unassigned general fund is a percentage of the next year's twenty twenty five's general fund tax levy and an LGA. So, we're at 67.7% this year. Policy is generally to keep it between 4060%. We did transfer out some money out of the general fund to the reserve fund just to create some project fund project funds buckets in that in that reserve fund. So the ambulance and the ambulance capital funds. So the combined fund balance of both of those funds is 468,000. The regular ambulance fund at 443 and the capital is at about 24,000.
We did spend some of our cash reserves there in the light blue. We see that coming down, with the purchase of the ambulance in 2024. Our fire and fire capital, the combined fund balance there is just under a million dollars at 9, 919,000. Our fire fund at 44,000 and the capital at 875,000. You can see we're continuing to build our reserves there. We're, saving for a tanker in the next couple years. The EDA fund balance. The EDA is supported through, the general fund has a contribution this year of 78,000. Fund balance just came down slightly to $35,000
in this fund. Library fund balance combined the library, of 103,000 and the library capital of 302,000. So total at $4.00 5. Fund balance stayed pretty flat from the prior year. Not a lot of change there. The Chatfield Center for the Arts, this was established with the both, contributions from the school district and the city. The city again contributed $90,000, this year, and you can see that increasing. So the fund balance is at a hundred and 33,000. So that you are building the reserves in this fund but also just to know that's not, not really a large fund balance for the size of that large building.
So to keep building that that fund up. The capital the cable access fund, this is supported by franchise fees. We brought in about $20,000 from the cable providers and fund balance at about 91,000. Fund balance did get brought down this year with spending $15,000 of our cash reserves when we split the cost of the press box with the school, the school district this year. The revolving loan fund fund balance. So, we have two different funds with it. The, federal and state, but the fund balance, these are funds that are available to be reloaded when people, have qualified purposes for these.
So there's two new loans were issued this year and then five loans were paid off. Total fund balance at a hundred and $95,000 with our six outstanding loans that we have. Our governmental debt, bonds. So we have no new debt in 2024 and we're continuing to pay down all of our debt each year. 2023 bond, the farthest one, the farthest two on the right have been interest only payments and those will start in future years for principal. And then just to note two of the bonds we're gonna do early payoffs in 2025. So the 2012 a and the 2017 a I believe will be paid off next
year early. The business type, debt bond obligations, again, continuing to pay down those bonds as well. The net pension liability, this is the city's portion of Paris underfunding. So these numbers are actually determined that they give us a study. So it's saying that city of Chatfield's portion of, Paris underfunding is $843,000 this year. So as you can see from 2022, this can vary widely. A lot of it's based on how well the market's doing or if they change their assumptions in their study. But the last bullet point there is showing that both the general employees as well
as the police and fire, they're both roughly 90% funded. So that's actually pretty pretty well funded for their plan, Paris plan. Capital projects, your capital goods fund. Total at $1,300,000 this increase with our transfer in from the general fund. To create those project buckets And then some of our capital expenditures we listed there this year, we spent out $371,000 on those various items, like our food fuel tanks, our land for the MnDOT property, berm improvement squad cars, Chevy Traverse, some turf and fencing, and our alleyway alley overlay and sidewalks. Our utility funds next,
the water fund. Operating revenues there in the lighter blue. We did increase our rates by about 15%. The revenues didn't increase at the same though. We noted that we had a drought this year and the city asked users to use less if possible. So our usage was down. So you did see an increase in the revenue just not the as much as the rate increase would show. But the revenue is still enough to cover our operating expenses in the dark blue as well as our depreciation in the teal which gives us a net income on the gold there. The water fund,
cash and investments in the light blue. We did spend down our cash as, we spent all of our unspent bond proceeds for our projects to complete those projects this year. Spent all the remaining funds on that and used some of our cash reserves to complete those projects as well as some pumps and hydrants that we noted this year. And then you see our dark blue bonds be paying down our bonds payable. Sewer fund did not see a rate increase and you see the light blue there pretty for the operating revenues pretty consistent with the prior year. Covering our operating expenses as well as depreciation and the net income there in the gold.
Just over 300,000. So operating revenues at over a million dollars. Next, the cash and investments. We we spent some of our reserves on capital this year as well on the sewer funds. We had about capital purchase of about 221,000 with our Chevy, Silverado, some pumps, and UV systems. We also transferred over a hundred and $50,000 to the water fund this year. We did not have a rate, increase here, and we're paying down our debt. So, unrestricted cash in the sewer fund at $237,000 in at the end of the year. Our garbage fund, I see the light blue revenues came down slightly.
We did not change our garbage rates, but we did bring our recycling rates down a little bit. So operating revenues at 292,000 did cover our operating expenses, of about $264,000. So we had operating income in the garbage fund as well. And our cash balance remained pretty flat in the garbage fund still about $37,000 the last several years. In summary then, our unassigned general fund balance of 1,600,000.0 equals 67.7 of our next year's general fund levy as well as LGA next year. Our capital goods, fund balance at $1,300,000
at the end of the year. This is available for our capital replacement plan and any of the other, capital items that we need. And then we completed our 2022 a water storm project as well as the 2023 street improvement project, and spent various, the the last line there is how much we spent over the last couple of years on those projects because they're they've spanned, several years. And then our payments on our debt are being made timely, and our water and sewer rates are, based on our established schedule, and the city is continuing to monitor those rates for necessary increases. Does anyone have any questions on the PowerPoint? Thank you very much.
Thank you to Michelle and Kaye again as always. K. Six Minnesota Energy Resource Franchise Agreement. This is the second review. Looking to have a motion to approve. So moved. Motion by Dave. Looking for a second. Second. Second by Pam. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Second thing is, so a motion to approve publishing. Looking for a motion to approve. So moved. Motion by Paul. Looking for a second. Second. Second by Josh. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. Item seven. We got ordinance four seventy eight,
the media account franchise agreement. This is the first review. I'm sure everybody looked at that, so there's no action to be taken on that. Item b, utility fee waiver program for new single family homes. Looking for a motion to approve continuation of the program. Some of. Motion by Dave. Looking for a second. Second. Further discussion. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Agreement with SEH for the water tank replacement tech memo and funding assistance. K. Moving for a motion to approve that? Yes, please. Either staff recommendation, looking for a motion to approve.
So moved. Motion by Paul. Looking for a second. Second. Second by Pam. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Now item eight, down to the committee reports. First thing I'll budget and public works. Where? Yeah. So we spent a little time, talking about the the close out of the construction fund and then, how some of the proceeds are I don't know if I'll explain it right, but, there was a little more left over from the project than we originally thought. And so being that the water fund is struggling a little bit,
we were I think they're gonna bring a resolution back, but we're gonna, defer the transfer from the water fund into the debt service fund and let that overage above and beyond what we thought we were gonna have cover that up and try to right size the waterfront just a little bit. But there'll be a resolution coming later. So we spent a little time talking about that. Spent a little time talking about what we're gonna do with our old ambulance that we haven't been able to sell, come up with a number of me, put it on public surplus. So if anybody has any good ideas or know anybody that needs an ambulance or some way to sell that to so we talked about that.
We didn't get to the, we're working on some holiday rotation and weekend rotation stuff. Thing things have changed a little with the SCADA system, so we're working on updating that. We don't have any nothing new on getting rid of the pedestrian bridge you guys were working on. But there's a few good leads, so we're we're holding tight for that. We looked over the deputy deputy clerk, job description, and we're gonna need to post that. Michelle's got the timeline for that. Flower baskets, we didn't really talk about that because I think we already did most of that. But, there's gonna be some new working against some new flower baskets or and hooks to hook them and then a
new watering system to ease the pressure on how the how that happens. I gotta come back at a different time. And then we started looking at some options for building security, cameras, door fob key fobs for various locations, city hall, fire hall, CCA, library. And so we're just diving into that a little bit. How's that? Perfect. Good. Public works, Paul. Got updated on the bucket truck repair. I think Brian's phoned a certified welder and got that information coming. Everything's leading up to a well to get that repaired from a certified welder.
We had a little bit of time to talk about water truck replacement, which we're still hashing that over, updated on the tool cap blower and the broom replacement for later this fall, but we don't have updated numbers, but that'll be coming back. Are we doing a motion on the snowplow replacement wing replacement, or is that that's gonna take its place and turn into insurance? Yeah. So the I don't know if you guys all saw the pictures the snowplow hit. What did it hit? It was sewer repair. Sewer repair. We did. It got soft and it got hooked on and snapped the underbody of the blade off. And so with that,
we filed a claim. Sir, it was just came last Friday. We got bids that replaced for repairs of $717,100 and tires in the back got cut. So it's a thousand bucks for them. So we're we're okay to go ahead and get repairs. Could've been a lot worse. And then we spent a little well, a meeting ago, we were talking about doing a wastewater treatment facility plan for some a little long range planning for a few things. Put that on hold for a little bit, because the city our staff decided that the water tank that's more pressing.
So we're working on, on the water tank replacement stuff. And part of that was signing the contract to chase down some grand dollars. That was it. I voted. Alright. Thanks, Paul. Item nine, banners report. We haven't met since the wrestling state wrestling. I wanna congratulate the the team, the individuals. You guys did a heck of a job and we're pretty, really proud of you guys. So and hopefully, this weather is gonna hold for us. But who knows? March Madness is rolling around,
but still sixties and seventies not too bad this time of the year. So and on that note, pass it over to Michelle. Thank you. Last week, we had the opportunity to attend city day on the hill. I think that's always very helpful. They present a lot on the different pieces of legislation that will impact the cities or what's being presented this year. I think the biggest thing I really wanna keep track of is the the different zoning pieces because I think it's important for each community to be able to set their own guidelines, and keep that character that makes our community special and makes us all individual.
Anyhow, today, we attended the Ready annual meeting. And after that, the community's council, so there's six communities. We sat down with a national builder and just had a conversation about what does it look like, what are they looking like looking for in communities. And, it was really interesting because their conversations parallel that of, last summer, we had a more had some of our more regional builders, and they were saying the same thing. They need input from the cities. They want to know that they can work with us, and they want to know that we want them here.
So instead of, I think, in the past, we waited for developers to come to us. I think it's really up to us to talk to our developers and let them know what we want to. So I think what spurred me out of that is I'd like to sit down and talk to our local developers and builders and and let them know what we're thinking and just have that conversation. So there's no assumptions. And then this week, we'll be I'll be participating in a participating in a discussion about the Metropolitan Transit Plan with Olmsted County and the other cities. So let them know what it's important to chat field about that.
So that's what I have. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. Mhmm. Down to round table. Yep. I'm good. Thanks. Ma'am? I'm good. Dave? I'm good. Paul? I'm good. Josh? Good. Looking for a motion to adjourn. So moved. Motion by Dan. Looking for a second.