[0:03] Okay. Good afternoon everybody. We’re on air, so let’s call the meeting to order the Diversion Authority Finance Committee. August 26th at 4 p.m.. Roll call the members, please. Dawn. Mayor Gjerdevig. Here. Mayor Boschee here. Ms. Mayor Carlson. Mr. Steen here. Ms. Thompson here. Mr. Ebinger here. Mr.. Redlinger here. Mr. Peterson.
[0:30] I’m here, Mr. Kapitan here. Mr. Reed’s here. And Ms. Haley. Present. Quorum is present. You have a quorum. Perfect. Uh, with that, we have the minutes from the prior meetings. July 22nd. Any corrections or a motion to approve? I move to approve. Motion to approve. Is there a second? Second? Second. Somebody, uh.
[0:57] Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye aye. All the same sign. Approve the order of the agenda. Any changes? Additions to the agenda or a motion to approve. So I’ll move. Motion to approve. Is there a second? Second. Second. Any discussion on the motion? All those in favor say aye.
[1:14] Aye, aye. Opposed? Same sign. Next item on the agenda is a request for nomination for chair of the Division authority finance Committee. And then conduct the election. I was vice chair, uh, when Mr. Dardis left, I was put in the position as chair.
[1:35] So under our rules, we need to elect a chair for the remaining part of this year through December. Looking for nomination. I move for Mr. Steen. Second motion and a second. Is there any other nominations? Any other nominations? Mr. chair, move. Yes, sir. Most these nominations unanimous ballot for former commissioner Rick Steen, second.
[2:02] There’s motion to second to cease nominations and cast unanimous ballot. Do we take a roll on that? Yes, please. Okay. Roll, please. Mayor Gjerdevig. Aye, Mayor Boschee Yes. Mr. Steen? Yes, Ms.. Thompson? Yes, Mr. Ebinger. Yes. Mr. Redlinger. Yes, Mr. Peterson. Yes, Mr. Kapitan. Yes. Mr. Rietz. Yes. Yes. Motion passes. Uh, next item on the agenda.
[2:31] Then we need to elect appoint a vice chair to the finance Committee. Uh, any interested parties or any nominations for that position? Any interested parties? Maybe. Anybody? I’m not. I nominate the mayor of Fargo, Mr. Boschee. You can decline if you want to. I’ll decline.
[2:59] I was itching to nominate someone who’s not here. But I didn’t know if someone here was interested, so. Thank you. But I’ll have to pass. Um, with that, um, Mr. Peterson, Commissioner Peterson, are you interested? If not, we’ve got someone else I can nominate. But I just. I would do it. Sure, that’d be fine. Unless it’s unless someone else wants second. Yep. Nominate Commissioner Peterson.
[3:24] On this. Mr. Mayor, did you have. There’s someone, uh, Mayor to the city on the other side of the river that isn’t here, that I would nominate if we needed to, but. Okay. If you’re interested, we’d love to have you do it. Yes. Okay. All right, so we have a nomination for the vice chair.
[3:42] Um, Commissioner Peterson, any additional nominations? Any additional nominations? I move nominations cease and unanimous ballot cast for Mr. Peterson. Second. Is there a second? There’s a second. With that, um, roll call, please. Mayor Boschee. Yes, yes, Mr. Steen? Yes, Ms. Thompson? Yes. Mr. Ebinger. Yes. Mr. Redlinger. Yes. Mr. Peterson. Yes. Mr. Kapitan yes, Mr. Reitz yes.
[4:11] And Ms. Heinle, yes. Motion passes. Gratitude. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Peterson. With that, we’re actually moving on to the real agenda here. Uh, Susan, if you wouldn’t mind taking the approval of the bills piece. Yes, the bills are on page five.
[4:31] Um, they are bills received through August 19th, and there are about a dozen of them totaling $6.3 million on the largest two, um, Cass County joint Water Resource district, a 4.5 million, um, primarily, uh, some land buyouts. And then the city of Fargo at nearly one and a half. And that’s to reimburse in-town projects. Any questions? Any questions for Susan on the bills hearing? None.
[4:54] Is there a motion to approve the payment of the bills for $6,383,383.03. So moved. Second. A motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? Roll call please. Mayor Gjerdevig. Yes, Mayor. Boschee. Yes, Mr.. Steen? Yes, Ms.. Thompson. Yes, Mr.. Ebinger. Yes. Mr.. Redlinger. Yes. Mr.. Peterson. Yes. Mr. Kapitan yes. Mr. Reitz yes. Ms. Heinle. Yes.
[5:21] Motion passes. Uh, moving on to number 6 or 7, I should say a finance report. Ms. Thompson, please continue. Page 34 includes historic and year to date revenues, expenditures and other funding sources. Um, just a little spoiler.
[5:41] We are seeing an increase in sales tax, so that is good news. And then if we move to page 35, uh, the statement of net position, we have cash or I’m sorry, total assets for all three of the funds of 303,974,000 914. Uh, liabilities of a -2.3 million. I’ll I’ll explain that in a second. And then net position of 306,355,000 555.
[6:19] Um, the negative vouchers payable is kind of an odd timing issue. Um, it will clear the end of this month. Um, we close the books early, um, while we had some outstanding invoices and it reflected as a negative. So it will clear. Up..
[6:35] Any questions for Susan? I just have a request for next meeting, and this is before we have any motion here. There’s a lot of different funds right now that are in here. And maybe next meeting. Just have a short explanation of what those funds are. The the excess revenue, the temporary debt.
[6:49] I mean, just so the the finance committee understands it, we’ve got new members on the Finance Committee, I think would be a good idea to do that. So whoever wants to set that up for next meeting, that’d be great. Okay. All right. And then, uh, with that motion to approve the finance report. So moved.
[7:10] Second Boschee and Dave, any discussion on the motion? All those in favor say aye. Oh. Sorry. Acceptable voice. It is a voice. It’s not appropriating. Sorry. Following directions. Yes, sir. All right, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Same sign. Thank you. Cash budget. Jason. Thank you. Uh, so.
[7:38] When we look at our our sales tax for both the, the city and county, um, we’re up this month. Um, actually up about 33% over last month for Fargo. Last month, we were at 2.8 million. So, um, really strong. And then same thing for Cass County. Last month we were 1.5. So just over 36% that we’re up there. So, uh, looking good.
[7:59] Uh, with you draws, um, you know, a consistent message there. We’re still, you know, just slowly going at, uh, these wifia draws as we get the, um, interim completion elements from the P3 contractor, River Valley Alliance.
[8:22] Uh, we make those payments, but we have not been receiving those in the the quantity that we had anticipated. Um, when we had budgeted. So that’s why we’re a little bit behind on where we had initially thought when with the original budget, uh, outside of that, no, uh, no other big, uh, issues there.
[8:45] And then on the next page, uh, for our overall level one, uh, expenditures, um, again, the, you know, reflecting the same thing with our ICS, um, our payments for to the developer for milestone payments is, um, you know, we still have nearly six, 600 million remaining for this year. Um, other projects are 37 foot projects.
[9:08] We’ve got ongoing construction with the city of Fargo, specifically that that we anticipate will be making some more payments to them as that construction wraps up, uh, at the end of the construction season this year, lands and impacted property mitigation.
[9:30] Um, we’re we’re not, um, you know, we still have $25 million remaining in that. And a lot of that’s because of the eminent domain cases that are still out there, uh, where it’s the slow trickle. We haven’t had a case go to eminent domain since last fall or go go to court since last fall.
[9:46] So we’ve been able to come to terms outside of court, but it’s still just been a slow trickle. And, um, it’s really kind of the rolls through some of the bigger ones that we’ve got outstanding. Uh, fiscal year remaining and kind of the, the reasons why we still have those larger quantities remaining outside of that. If there’s any questions you want me to dive into deeper, I more than happy to.
[10:05] Do that. Any questions for Mister Benson? I’ve got two questions back on page 58 of the one back, one page, and just two things that the SRF loan. Is that just a timing thing, or is it limited to what we can recall on that? Because it looks like we still have about 11 million left.
[10:25] We can pull on the SRF loan is there. And just kind of curious as to how we time the revenue on that versus the with you and some of the other things we do. I’m going to phone a friend on this one. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
[10:44] Members of the Finance Committee, the SRF loan is, uh, related to specific projects located within the city of Fargo. And the draws on the SRF loan can only be made for those projects. And there are a number of ongoing projects in Fargo that are, as they’re constructed, we make pay requests and draw down the SRF loan. It’s a great question.
[11:03] All right, thanks on that one. You may as well. I have another one on the on the street here. You might want to stay up there. Um, and what’s the MIT Inter fund transfers. That’s something new I think. Uh.
[11:18] It’s the master indenture of trust Inter fund, uh, transfers. Uh, there are. The easy way to explain it is as we draw, as we start to draw on various loans, such as the, uh, EPA with the alone, uh, we required to build additional reserves, uh, because it’s a growing reserve for the wifia loan, which is a nice feature of it.
[11:42] You don’t have to fully fund the reserve at the time you make the loan. So as the loan is drawn down, the trustee will transfer additional funds into the wifiaa reserve fund. Um, and so you see inter fund transfers within the Master Indenture Trust. And so yes.
[12:01] So we didn’t really budget anything for that this year, but it’s just kind of an offset to. Yeah. What we’re putting into the other funds transferred. It’s a great question. So under the master indenture of trust, all of the revenue of the authority is captured. And it’s like a waterfall. It’s dumped in at the top.
[12:19] Um, other than your annual administrative budget to what I refer to as keep the lights on, which is pay your staff, pay your executive director, uh, pay for the copy machines. And that’s limited in how much the administrative budget can be.
[12:41] Then everything drops into the master indenture of trust, and then the trustee, in accordance with that document, meters out all of the payments. And so you have debt service. And as we draw debt service and then they fill the reserve accounts that are matched up with that debt service and priority. And so as you start drawing on the wifia alone, the next priority requirement is to start filling that reserve.
[13:00] Um, as you’re drawing down your Wifia alone. And so as you’re drawing the wifia alone, they are drawing additional proceeds every month to build up the wifia reserve. And in doing that, then you don’t. It’s it’s a good thing for the authority because otherwise we would have to come up with the whole reserve back in 2020.
[13:20] So hopefully that answers your question. It helps. I was really excited when you asked about somebody to explain the funds. I know, John, you’re sitting there, you’re looking kind of bored. So I figured to get you involved, engaged. So all right. Any other questions for Jason or John? All right. That’s the information only report. Thank you very much.
[13:39] And then we have a board approval for contracting actions. Kris. Thank you. Chair Steen, members of the finance Committee, we have one contracting action for consideration this month. And that’s an amendment to the task order for the Jacobs contract. Um, we’re requesting $3.35 million added to their task order.
[14:15] That’ll be partially spent in 2026 and partially spent in 2027. Um, this contract amendment, um, extends their services of a couple of key components of their contract as outlined as outlined in the information you see on the screen. Uh, it really is tied to the P3 substantial completion. Um, since that date of getting all the paperwork, um, is very evident to be extended.
[14:40] Um, their document document control and those groups are integral in how we process all that information. They track all the submittals, they help us process everything. Um, so as Jason mentioned, we’ve been lagging in the interim completion pieces. And it’s just it’s an ongoing process for us.
[15:04] Um, we need, um, just want to make sure there’s assurance here. We’re not talking about construction not being completed. Um, just talking about the paperwork and the filing and the closeout of information taking longer than we expected, or extending further out into the future than we expected. Um, so anyway, with with that, I can stand for any questions you guys might have related to this contract amendment.
[15:25] Mr. Peterson. Mr. chair, thank you. Uh, is this hourly or is this a flat fee? I couldn’t I looked through here and I couldn’t find. That it’s an hourly contract. We we paid just hourly for time spent, so. Yeah. Where am I missing that? Uh, that’s probably in the original MSA.
[15:41] Or it lays out lays out those payments. Okay. So it’s not a guaranteed spend. It’s as needed spend based on. Absolutely. Yep. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mister chair. And answer that question. We’ve actually credited back some years have we not. We have. We balanced our budgets every year. There’s been years we have not spent all that.
[15:58] And we’ve credited that back. And yeah, so we’ve we’ve tried to keep that clean month year by year with all of our MSA contracts. That’s correct. Right. Any other questions for Kris? Yeah. Hearing none. We would need a motion to approve the contracting action as presented. So Mister Chair, second Mister Chair.
[16:18] A motion any second. Any discussion on the motion? Roll call, please. Mayor Gjerdevig. Yes, Mayor. Boschee. Yes, Mr. Steen? Yes, Ms.. Thompson? Yes. Mr. Ebinger. Yes. Mr.. Redlinger. Yes. Mr. Peterson. Yes. Mr. Kapitan yes. Mr. Rietz yes. And Ms. Heinle. Yes. Motion passes. Next item on the agenda, number ten. If you update, John. Thank you.
[16:46] Thank you, Mr. Chair. Members of the Finance Committee. Uh, just a brief update on the with with you alone today. Uh, we have made drawn number three of the wifia alone for approximately $30 million.
[17:06] We expect that the fiscal agent, the city of Fargo, will receive that payment for approximately September 15th, plus or minus a few days. Happy to answer any questions, but. Any questions for John. And that’s information only with that. Um, any other business? Our next meeting is September 23rd, 2026. And hearing no