17 October 2024 DCRSD Board Meeting Notes
These notes are taken from an audio recording of this meeting, as I was unable to attend.
Steve Renihan - President, Brett Fehrman - Vice President, Russell Beiersdorfer, Bill Shelton, Doug Baer, Jeff Stenger, and Steward Cline
Board Attorney - Frank Kramer
Also present: Bob and Mike Hrezo and Christy of Hrezo Engineering, Marc Emral, Register, and Tamara Taylor, Beacon.
Renihan read the Public Access Statement as legally required.
Minutes: September 25 Special Meeting Minutes Approved with Renihan abstaining as he was not at that meeting. October 3 Minutes- Approved with Cline and Beiersdorfer abstaining as they were not at that meeting.
Treasurers Report: Cline asked about $5500 correction in the spreadsheet. This was a refund for someone who changed their mind after DCRSD had cashed the check. LeeAnn Boggs CPA explained that the DCRSD office keeps receipts on file there so you can find those if you ever have questions. Approved the September Financials.
Public Comment:
Questions about the pump donated from Kevin Chaffee from last meeting and they have them and Meinders is going to install them Fri or Monday- per Christy
One resident has 3 properties wanting the sewer for them.
Boggs and Race Accountants- LeeAnn Boggs helping sewer district since Vera was here- and Katrina works mostly with Kelly each month. They explained the process they use with bank data etc.They get a monthly report- sometimes the bank statement is slow coming.
Cline asked on the monthly report. How do you determine each account against the budget- do you work with Doug Baer on that? LeeAnn- Kelly gives us that info- but the ones that are written to Hrezo, she has been splitting those out for us. Cline- what about revenue from the county on liens. The auditor cuts a check for the lien payment to them. It gets split under the wastewater income. This incudes revenue plus penalties.
Cline doesn’t think this shows all the costs for Lake Dilldear and Guilford projects. He wants to see the land payments. Land is an assets- the SBOA wants it that way. They had to go back and redo that. LeeAnn and Doug say that those assets are being tracked separately. Cline $519,000 was forwarded to us to help support the projects. We need to know. We are about $14,091 in arrears.
Doug Baer said he and Kelly are having to go back to old invoices as they had to separate out a lot of things that were mixed on some invoices.
Renihan said with ARPA federal money we have to have 2 separate accounts for each project. They have to have internal and bank reconciliations on this as well. Renihan said they had about $4million from gaming revenue when they started. Last year Council emptied out that account- $519,000 to DCRSD. We cannot take $$s out of these unless they are for the specific project. Any interest earned- we have to give that back to county as well as any money that we did not spend on the 2 projects.
Cline - When does the asset money move over?
You will see them when they are purchased, though they aren’t true assets until put into use per LeeAnn Boggs.
Cline asked about $787,000 expense on Texas Gas Rd in 2023- didn’t want to put them on the spot- but can you find out what that was for?
Lee Ann- I do know what that was- It was 18 Grinder pumps. Discussion on the proper labels on these items.Renihan explained a lot of previous things they did to get people to sign up early- incentives like a pump. This was from 2023.
Cline- $70,000 for project manager was for Hrezo, and $34,000 for Guilford and $14,000 Lake Dilldear.
Lee Ann -In December 2023 I had separated these out for Ewbank and Kramer and Hrezo for the 2 projects.
Cline -If I take the $519,000 and take it out, there is a loss of $140,000 for last year. Gain of $379,000 Income of $187,000 Exp of $327,000. It exaggerates the loss. It’s further complicated by the Texas Gas money. Because the income was in a prior year.[NOTE: Is he trying to figure out how much it takes to operate annually?]
LeeAnn- Because you are on a cash basis accounting.
Cline - Oh, I am not questioning how you do it. I’m trying to use these numbers- to look at the historical cash flow to see how far we are off from needed cash flow. We have to recoup that to at least run even. We have to add the expenses to run the new plant etc.
Renihan- $409,724 is in our savings still. We need to run as a business more now as we have been transitioning. Between a rate study and this we have come a long way. $3,402,000 is shown in assets now.
LeeAnn said there were no asset numbers before - we needed to do this. Are these projects actual assets?
Baer said we have to treat those 2 projects as expenses against the ARPA grant. Some of this expenses will turn into assets. The equipment and the pipe that goes in will be an asset.
Lee Ann- You also need useful life on all those.
Renihan- We do not have a depreciation schedule. For High Ridge either. We will need those for the new ones.
Lee Ann- Are you and Kelly creating the spreadsheet to show these?
Doug- yes we are doing this. Sifting thru all the expenses.
Cline- Quit transferring expenses on the 2 projects to Boggs and Race- that does not go into our financial report. I don’t know what you need to keep track of to tell us the total financial picture?
LeeAnn-What is she telling us?
Cline- If we continue to provide you the cost of the projects- it does not go into our regular receipts and disbursements.
LeeAnn- So where are you going to put this? It has to go somewhere.
Cline - relative to the checks that are written from ARPA accounts- that should not go on this standard financial statement.
Lee Ann- It has to go somewhere…
Cline-I’ve always kept track of that separately ($8.2million!!)
Stenger- I don’t think the SBOA will look kindly on keeping 2 sets of books.
Lee Ann- I don’t think so either. I have to tie back to cash and cash equivalents.
Cline- It’s not income, it’s a grant.
Baer-Because we establish an account- it’s income by definition.
Cline- The reason why I am pushing back is it will make it virtually impossible for us to track our working cash flow because it will be overwhelmed bytes $8 million.
LeeAnn- We have to find some place to put it on here. It does not have to go under operating, but it has to go somewhere. Do you have 2 separate accounts set for projects. Yes- just created them when awarded the grant.
Cline- This project is unique as we have an advance of the full amount of the grant. Usually you get reimbursed for your expense on a grant. Is there a recommendation you have to keep us out of trouble with SBOA.
LeeAnn- Land is asset- but does not get appreciated. There will be accounting for these expenses.
Cline- The other $7.75 million will all be depreciable ? Yes.
LeeAnn- She will redo the spreadsheet to reflect these clarifications.
Renihan- We have been audited by the SBOA- $11,000 for these audits by the SBOA. We report these annually on the Gateway website. This is transparent there. SBOA tracks us annually on Gateway.
LeeAnn- noted- they always find something and they seem to always have more questions when here.
Cline- Which one of these revenue items are ours on Aurora handling Huesman and Cole Lane. Debt service is based on a fee per customer. As long as they are paying their bills. We maintain lift station and lines- Discussion went on about the varying deals with each treating agent in the various places we have sewered. Cline-
So it would be good for me out of each line item- which ones do we control rate and what services are we providing for that revenue?
Renihan- Only High ridge has treatment revenue to us. Harrison Line in TIF district is maintained by Harrison. Serenity Ridge is only line we maintain but don’t collect revenue. The customers built the Serenity line though. LMH treats Serenity Ridge -Henderson neighbors that count ran line for too. There were VRUC ones that they had to force them to serve them as in their territory.
Cline- Was going to ask Brock which line item he used in his rate estimate baseline. We need to make sure we understand what his assumptions were. It’s not directly related, but we must understand where our income is coming from.
Renihan- Thanked LeeAnn for her time.
Cline- Infrastructure as $2million- and Lee Ann needs useful life on them and start date when put into service. So West Harrison TIF funds are in there.
We need to get TIF line info to Russell is actively trying to get that money back from them.
Beiersdorfer- said it came up in the Bright TIF discussion. He wants to know
Renihan $1.842million of the DCRSD money went into that line. Plus interest. Russell said- get me the numbers and I’ll send the bill.
When Russell, Doug and I were at Council. Asked if we’d ever recovered that money.
Cline Other are thinking of this too…
Renihan- If we had that back, we would be in much better shape. Yet they want us to run like a business.
Lee Ann Boggs left at this point. Renihan- glad we have used them all these years. And local.
Approx 8 pm
Project Updates: Bob Hrezo reported
Guilford- Contract signed with Earth Tek and talked about the down payment due on the tanks. We don’t write a check to them until they invoice us. That won’t occur till drawing are approved -per Mike Hrezo. It could take 4-6 weeks. Notice of award to Meinders given and moving forward. And also to notice of award to him for Lake Dilldear. Christy Construction for lines be done by this time next year and up and operational Sept or Oct. 2025. Jeff Meinders plan is to get as much lines in as possible while SR 1 is closed. Then the plant and the individual grinder pumps. Grinder and tap is grants cost. The rest is customer cost.The electric etc is customer and you have say over where the pump goes. Work directly with them. Set Grinder away from the old system. Customer has to abandon tank. This is federal money so all the people out there have to hook on. The Customer present (Mr Wilson) has 3 homes there between Mt Pleasant and Guilford to hook on.
Christy added that the pipe will be slightly cheaper- to support 200 PSI DR11 instead of DR9 250 PSI will be used. Renihan said BE SURE THE RIGHT PIPE is installed. Just see what the cost difference is. Don’t want it just to be cheaper- but be right.
High Ridge WWTP - Christy said Liberty pump is out there for Ashcraft. This will have a lock on this pump. It is ours now. After he buys it he can do what he wants. The control panel has to be locked down. Renihan- There is some inspection from IDEM on the plant and plan of action. Something about ammonia or something…Christy will get on it when she sees the paperwork.
High Ridge west Expansion -
Wilson Creek Project
Huesman Rd and Cole Lane
Harrison TIF/Stone Project
Scenic Ridge/148 Sewers /Outer Drive
Stateline Rd
Serenity Ridge Tranquility Court-
Moores Hill
Dillsboro- Christy- Mike and she have meeting to talk about SEI Data.
Christy- need items for READI grant- have to have that by Oct 25th. Moores Hill and Expansion of High Ridge plus SR 148 and Outer Drive need to be added to wish list. You have to show support for what it will DO for the county moving forward.
New Business: Jeff Stenger- heard that Envirolink is no longer dealing with SDRSD as their services are no longer needed as of December. The guy that was there has left. Renihan noted - well Envirolink as Crossroads still has the LMH Sewer up in Bright.
Brett Fehrman- noted that there are several people who cannot get hooked up and cannot be moved forward with Crossroads. It has to be brought up with IURC for Mr Clem- not us. His property is in LMH( Crossroads) territory.
Stenger- Just to make DCRSD aware that Envirolink is not in Lawrenceburg as they are part of the RFP that we have sent out.
Office Update: Payment plans over the years if not paid have not been recorded as liens. Found out when customer died or property sold and the liens weren’t there. They will work with Kelly to get those all looked at. Kelly will get us a list of those payment plans.
Bill Shelton - she needs to know where to look for those.
Renihan- She will have to look at the billing software. They did recall one lien that was missed in past. Some were recorded. Didn’t someone set up a spreadsheet for Vera Benning when she was doing that? Decided to let Kelly check on that. Should go down to Recorders office. Maybe use Doxpop.
Checks for Lake Dilldear are in and waiting on Guilford checks for the new accounts.
Claims: Cline moved to $9,027.28 should be adjusted by $4,027.28 and to show $5,000 payment against Guilford project for the Mr. Brock’s rate study after October 25th. -Approved.
Operating Claims approved and paid.
Discretion of the Board: Renihan- Mike Meyers of Crossroads called and requested a copy of the rate study. Board wanted to see and approve a rate study before we send it out. It should state it is NOT a board approved rate study. The attorneys from Barnes and Thornburg called to ask if we had heard from anyone regarding the RFP. The only one is Mr Meyers from Crossroads. As of last week no one has talked to Barnes and Thornburg. They had reached out to other organizations etc. Send to locals. Ask Chris at Barnes and Thornburg to send it to Crossroads and any others. Cline motioned to do this and Shelton 2nd. Stenger has issues with sending this out. We have not paid for it even or approved one. Frank has no issue with him sending it out. Doug, Brett, Jeff, Russell voted Nay. Cline and Shelton were Yes. Motioned Failed.
Motion next to send the current accepted rate study to send it to Chris at Barnes and Thornburg to send to RFP applicants - approved.
Adjourn: 7:25
PM approx.
Christine Brauer Mueller
Lawrenceburg Township
