[0:00] Yeah, saved it. All right, time is now about

[0:06] 6:15 and a call to order this council workshop September 2nd, 2026. Begin with

[0:12] the pledge of allegiance. Please rise.

[0:17] » I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic

[0:22] for it stands one nation indivisibley

[0:27] and justice for all.

[0:32] First is an opportunity for citizens to be heard. Is there anybody here who

[0:36] would like to be heard? Member of the public? Anybody by by Zoom? Okay. Then

[0:41] we'll move on to presentations. We have uh our audit update.

[1:39] First

[1:46] details on the next slide.

[2:17] I'm sorry. Okay. Sorry about that. A single audit was performed this year. Uh

[2:22] just meaning that the total federal dollar expenditures exceeded $1 million.

[2:26] And because of that, we had to take a look at the uh single audit and the

[2:29] expenditures over selected federal programs.

[2:33] Diving into some of the additional details on the independent auditors

[2:37] report. Again, this is where we as your independent auditors issue our opinion

[2:40] on your financial statements. And essentially what that means is that we

[2:44] feel the financial statements are materially correct and can be relied

[2:47] upon. What it is not, it's not an opinion on internal controls, nor is an

[2:51] opinion or results of a fraud investigation. I know sometimes people

[2:54] hear the word audit. They think that we look at every transaction although it

[2:58] may feel like it's adjacent at times. We do not look at every transaction. We

[3:01] perform sampling to ultimately perform the procedures and issue the opinion

[3:05] that the financial statements are materially correct. Also just made

[3:08] reference to the management discussion and analysis. This is included in the

[3:12] financial statements and does provide a narrative analysis of the financial

[3:15] statements that is prepared internally by management and reviewed as part of

[3:19] our audit. On the next page, it just turns your attention now uh to some of

[3:23] the general fund. A lot of numbers here, a lot of columns. So, we'll start with

[3:27] the general fund. These are the revenue and the expenditures. It takes 2024

[3:31] actual, has 2025 actual, compares the 25 actual to the final budgeted amount. So,

[3:37] I'm going to focus on a couple variances here, but starting in the total revenues

[3:41] for the year, about 13.3 million. That is less than last year, which was right

[3:45] around 16.1 million or a decrease of around 17%. Nothing alarming there. Uh

[3:51] the fourth item from the bottom, intergovernmental, those are your grant

[3:54] revenues. Obviously, they can fluctuate from year to year and depending on when

[3:57] they're received and when they're spent. Uh that's the main fluctuation there in

[4:01] the revenue category. Everything else fairly comparable and pretty much in

[4:05] line with the budgeted amounts for your total revenues. Moving down to the total

[4:09] expenditures for the year, just under $10.5 million compared to about $9.9

[4:14] million or a 6% increase compared to last year. So again, overall fairly

[4:18] comparable. And then on the bottom you have your other financing sources and

[4:22] uses. Again the largest fluctuation are your transfers in and out just depending

[4:26] on the transfers made to any e other funds during the year. Uh but literal

[4:30] bottom line for 2025 there was a positive change in fund balance of about

[4:34] $3.6 million. Last year it was $2 million and you had actually budgeted a

[4:39] deficit of $938,000. So, a positive variance there of about $4.5 million in

[4:44] comparison to the budget mainly due to the expenditures being less again mainly

[4:48] because of the grant revenues and expenditures and not spending of those

[4:52] funds. On the next page, I'll just turn your attention now briefly to the fund

[4:57] balance. So, these categories are prescribed uh for by Gazsby or the

[5:01] government accounting standards board highlighting committed fund balance

[5:05] about $517,000 and assigned fund balance. The majority

[5:09] of the assigned fund balance actually looks at 2026. If you have a budget

[5:13] deficit, that's gets assigned. Basically, you're setting that aside to

[5:17] be used in the next fiscal year. So, that's the majority of the assigned fund

[5:20] balance. And then the unassigned fund balance, if it doesn't meet one of those

[5:23] previous categories, falls down your unassigned or available to be spent. You

[5:27] can see a very healthy unassigned fund balance about $15.5 million. If you take

[5:32] that as a percentage of the annual expenditures, almost 150%. So again,

[5:36] very healthy reserves within the general fund. Also highlights the fund balance

[5:40] in your capital projects fund, highway aid fund, and asset forfeite. Those are

[5:44] restricted for those specific purposes. So that's why they are included there on

[5:48] the restricted line item. Turning your attention now to the utility side of

[5:53] things or the proprietary fund. Won't dive into too many details here uh but

[5:58] did just want to highlight again when you look at the literal bottom line, the

[6:01] change in net position. Each of these funds except for the parking fund did

[6:05] have a positive change in that position, meaning the total revenues exceeded the

[6:09] total expenses. Again, the outlier being the parking fund. But did just want to

[6:13] highlight included in the operating expenses here is your depreciation

[6:17] expense. So, obviously a non-cash item, but is included there in the expense

[6:21] side of things and that's included there in your operating expenses. But again, I

[6:24] think a positive note to see mostly a positive change in that position across

[6:28] the board. On the next page, I'll just turn your attention now to the note

[6:33] number seven within the footnotes for your pension plans. I like to include

[6:37] these details because this looks at the pension plans, looks at the total future

[6:40] liability for each of those, compares it to the assets that are set aside. And a

[6:44] very positive note that both of your pension plans, uh, the non-uniform and

[6:48] the police are currently fully funded and actually a little bit more than

[6:51] fully funded. You can see 107% and 115% respectively for each of those plans.

[6:57] So, a very positive note again to have those plans fully funded.

[7:01] I did pull out one section of the statistical section uh within your

[7:05] financial statements and it's your debt margin. The statistical schedule

[7:08] actually shows 10 years. I couldn't quite fit all that here on one slide.

[7:12] So, what I tried to do was take 10 years ago. The current year and kind of the

[7:16] middle point there for 2020. And you can see your debt limit is obviously

[7:19] increased over that time period and the amount of debt that you have incurred

[7:23] has also increased. But if you look at the total amount of the debt applicable

[7:26] to the debt limit as a percent, fairly comparable over that time period. So

[7:30] obviously you've issued debt over the past couple of years, nothing in 2025.

[7:34] Uh but yes, still less than half of the total debt limit uh for the bureau. Very

[7:38] consistently right around 46%. Moving on now to the single audit.

[7:44] Again, this year the total federal expenditures amongst all the federal

[7:48] programs was just under $2 million. The threshold for a single audit was raised

[7:52] this year. It went from $750,000 to a million dollar. Obviously, you still

[7:56] exceeded that either way. But the program that we tested was the highway

[8:01] planning and construction grant. It was the largest federal grant that you had.

[8:04] And I'm happy to report that there were no findings. Again, we look at internal

[8:07] controls over compliance and compliance over those federal dollars and happy to

[8:11] report that there were no findings related to the program that we tested,

[8:14] the highway planning and construction grant.

[8:18] The next document that we have is what's known as our management letter. Uh these

[8:22] include any summary of new standards that will affect the bureau's financial

[8:25] statements in the future. Uh there's one uh that will affect the financial

[8:29] statements mainly just classifications in the near term and a couple others

[8:32] that'll be applicable over future years but those are detailed out in the

[8:35] management letter and I won't bore you with those details here this evening. Uh

[8:38] but did just want to highlight you here just a couple of graphical analysis that

[8:42] we're going to cover. They're included in your separate management letter and

[8:44] not in the acer itself. So the first graph that we have uh just shows some

[8:49] trends over time from a cash and investment comparison standpoint by

[8:53] fund. So you can see the general fund again still has about $27 million at the

[8:57] end of 2025. A slight reduction compared to the previous year. While your capital

[9:01] projects fund has about $1 million. Nothing surprising there is that cash

[9:05] balance decreases as you obviously are spending on those projects. You issued

[9:09] that last year and spend those down and that cash balance comes down as those

[9:12] projects are spent. and all the other funds. Again, some slight increases

[9:16] within your utility funds, uh, but again, fairly comparable across each of

[9:20] those years. And again, very healthy cash balances for each of the respective

[9:24] funds. The next graph just looks at a revenue comparison. And again, you can

[9:28] see a couple line items that had some fluctuations, but for the most part,

[9:31] fairly consistent. Starting with the taxes on the lefth hand side, this is

[9:35] all of your taxes. So, it includes earned income taxes, real estate taxes,

[9:39] as well as your realy transfer tax. In 2024, you had a very significant realy

[9:44] transfer tax. Again, that kind of returned down to a normal level, but

[9:47] that's why you're seeing the decrease. 2024 was the outlier when you received

[9:51] the additional realy transfer tax in 2024. So, nothing alarming by seeing

[9:55] that decrease. Again, all the other taxes had increased in comparison to the

[9:59] previous year. And I referenced earlier kind of right in the middle of the

[10:02] middle, the intergovernmental category. Those are your grants. Again, that can

[10:06] obviously fluctuate from year to year depending on when the grants are spent.

[10:09] uh when you recognize the associated revenue and again everything else fairly

[10:13] comparable across the board from a revenue comparison standpoint. Turning

[10:17] your attention now to the expense side of things again when you look across

[10:21] this you can see very consistent amounts across the board of some minor

[10:24] fluctuations again increases in public safety as well as your water and sewer

[10:29] funds but for the most part again very comparable expenses uh across the board.

[10:34] The next graph and last graph that we have is just a change in fund balance or

[10:38] net position. So this shows each fund. I know we saw this for the general fund as

[10:41] well as your water, sewer, parking, and storm water funds already, but over the

[10:45] past five years, again, in the capital projects fund, any year that you incur

[10:49] debt, that's revenue. And then as you spend it, it's expensed. And that

[10:53] doesn't always match up from year to year. So that's why you're seeing the

[10:55] big swings there uh within your capital projects fund. But again, I think a very

[10:59] positive note as you see each of these graphs and each of these funds for the

[11:02] most part a positive change or a positive change in fund balance in that

[11:06] position for each of those funds over that time period again with capital

[11:09] projects fund being the outlier. The other letter that we have related to

[11:14] our audit is what's known as our communication with those charged with

[11:16] governance. Had there been any significant issues in completing the

[11:19] audit or disagreements with management, we'd have to report on those here in

[11:22] this letter. I'm happy to report there were no such issues or disagreements. So

[11:26] that's why we just considered our standard communications letter. So in

[11:29] summary, again, I think very positive results stemming from the audit this

[11:33] year. We were able to issue an unmodified audit opinion, which is the

[11:36] best opinion that we can issue. I'm happy to report that there were no

[11:39] findings related to the audit. And again, just to reiterate positive

[11:42] changes in fund balance and position of most of the funds and again we're able

[11:46] to perform the single audit over the um transportation grant and happy to report

[11:50] that there were no findings related to that as well.

[11:54] I know that was a lot of information. Uh I hope somewhat fairly quickly for you.

[11:58] Uh but I'm happy to answer any questions either from the presentation or from the

[12:02] actual audit documents themselves. >> There any questions?

[12:09] » Just a quick question. Um is the reason for the

[12:15] um parking fund the same as the capital projects in terms of how you calculate

[12:20] change? Well, there wasn't any debt that was

[12:23] issued associated with the parking fund. So, that's more operational where it's

[12:27] just the revenue uh did not exceed the expenses within the parking fund. But

[12:32] again, depreciation is included there in the parking fund. So, that's a non-cash

[12:36] item. Um, so that's included in the expenses. Without the depreciation, it

[12:40] would have been a surplus. I don't remember the exact amount. Um, but

[12:42] without the depreciation, it would have been a positive amount.

[12:47] » Anything else? Thank you.

[12:51] » Well, thank you very much for your time this evening. Uh we appreciate doing a

[12:54] service for the burough. If you have any questions after tonight, uh please feel

[12:57] free to either contact me or filter those through management. We'd be happy

[12:59] to help. >> Thank you very much.

[13:01] » Thanks. Good evening. >> Okay, we'll move on to tabled items. Um

[13:06] and I think we're ready to bring this one off t the table. So, we would have

[13:11] to start with a motion to uh remove uh from the table the proposed

[13:17] updated guidelines. Is there such a motion?

[13:20] » Um I'll move to remove the um updated guidelines for the outside agency

[13:26] funding process uh from from the table for additional discussion.

[13:30] » It's a motion. Is there a second? >> Second.

[13:32] » Second by councelor Melon. I'll call the question. All those in favor can signify

[13:35] by saying I. >> Those say motion carries. So that's now

[13:40] off the table and up for discussion. Um we can we can have a motion on it at

[13:47] this point. Um but I think really tonight we're just uh we're just going

[13:50] to have some discussion then kick it to to next week. Is that fair to say? Okay.

[13:55] Um everybody I think we've had some I keep

[14:00] looking at you Kate because um you know you had some some good input one. I just

[14:05] want to thank everybody for their efforts in um and working to kind of

[14:09] flesh this out. Um thank you for um taking my um comments into

[14:16] consideration. I really do think that this um kind of better suits the needs

[14:22] and it's a little bit more flexible um and and also it kind of helps us because

[14:28] it covers a little bit more in depth the criteria that we are going to use in in

[14:33] order to to make our decisions. So I I appreciate your efforts and thank you

[14:37] very much for that.

[14:41] » Are we all at a at a place we're ready to move this forward to the agenda next

[14:45] week? >> Okay. We do that by consent. I don't see

[14:48] any objections. Okay, we'll have it on the agenda next week. Okay,

[14:54] that's the only item in business. [laughter]

[14:58] I'm sure everybody's disappointed. I think I I made this meeting twice as

[15:03] long as [laughter] it needed to be.

[15:08] Um, is there any new new business to be to be heard for a manager or anything?

[15:13] No. Okay. Um, is there any public comment? Do we have anybody by Zoom?

[15:18] Okay, we are adjourned. Thank you all.

September Borough Council Workshop

Transcript