Last night there were two significant items discussed:
- We received the annual reports for FY21 and FY22 from the Trails and Landscape Committee. The reports had been delayed due to the Committee changing over during COVID and other staffing constraints. The two annual reports reflected expenditures less than budget due to previous drought conditions and limited staffing during COVID. While there remains a fund balance, much of that was projected to be used towards repair of the Cardinet Trail. We will be discussing budget allocation for this work during the larger budget discussions throughout May and June.
- We discussed the status of the GHAD, its funding, and prioritization of work. This is the culmination of many years of requests to determine the scope of work the GHAD should be performing, and what it should actually be doing given the resource constraints. I wrote in greater detail about the first round of this discussion here: https://www.jeffwanforclaytoncitycouncil.net/2023/03/32123-oakhurst-geological-hazard.html.
In summary, the GHAD receives approximately $50K in funding each year from assessments levied against the approximately 1400 properties in the district. Required baseline expenses for administering the District including the cost of the levy itself are approximately $28K. This leaves only $22K per year for all things that GHAD is responsible for. Our GHAD General Manager indicated that it would take approximately $500K in revenues each year to adequately fund the GHAD for its activities and build a reasonable reserve. The GHAD severely underfunded and as a result can only perform activities it can fund.
Unless the residents of the GHAD agree to an increase in assessments, this will continue to be the case and the GHAD will need to prioritize what it does, though with the current level of funding it will likely be minimal. We asked the General Manager to come back with a few different budget proposals that contemplate prioritizing different activities and what that would entail. That should come back later in June when we finalize the overall budget.
- There was also a meeting of the Budget and Audit Committee to go over the newly proposed master fee schedule. The agenda with that information can be found here: https://claytonca.gov/fc/agendas/BudgetAudit%20Committee/05152023BAweb.pdf. Next Monday (5/22) the Budget and Audit Committee will meet again to review the entire FY24 budget that should incorporate that information, as well as several other suggested changes from our last working session. The lead up to this has been long, from working through investment policy, incorporating potential savings from Climatec, additional information from our solid was collection agreement, reviewing periodic pension cost fluctuation, as well as the previously mentioned Master Fee Schedule.
