Um I'll go ahead and call this meeting on the special finance committee with the council order this morning on issues on the 7th.

Million Hope Stasberg District 3.

Sophia McDowell Clerk's office.

Jeff McKim, City Control.

Deputy Mayor.

Thank you.

We have a member of the public here this night, which is exciting.

We're gonna look at the agenda first.

So first of all, we need to approve the agenda.

Short update.

Um controller McKem following up on a couple of uh comments from the public or requests from the public and audit reports, which hopefully won't take a few minutes.

Um I wanted to, as part of this committee is kind of looking back back in the moment that uh we looked at as a full council on Wednesday, just to um there's a couple of changes that I may, though let's unpack it as the one from Wednesday, so that's when we've got screen share.

Um, just to go over those and make sure that there's nothing else that anybody in this committee at least uh identifies.

Um also talk if there's any other kind of budget presentation formatting stuff because I feel like we talked about that a little bit more than maybe how it was described in the in the letter, but like maybe it covers it, but I just wanted to get feedback on that.

Um then I figured that because there weren't as many things on the agenda for this particular meeting that it might be the time to talk about the official salary stuff for the first time because what I don't want to do is get to you know, uh July or August and all of a sudden have to do that kind of rush.

And so I want to be able to kind of deliberately have a plan about that.

Um, so just kind of talking about what it is that we want to do, making any changes to the budget calendar, especially with regard to both setting around uh legit official salaries, and then we're done.

So does that look good to folks?

Anybody want to officially move for approval?

Moving the uh uh agenda.

Sorry.

All in favor.

Fantastic.

So let's go ahead for the update from Tel Refant.

Great.

Uh thank you very much.

Uh Jeff McKim, I wanted to give you an update on several of our audit and reporting requirements.

I know I've provided some background information in the past, but there are a couple of new pieces of information.

And since several of you asked me about these requirements recently, I thought I'd provide an update at the meeting.

Uh, first, there is the annual financial report or AFR.

The AFR is an unaudited financial filing that all local units of government are required to make each year by March 1st for the preceding year.

Accordingly, we submitted our AFR information on February 27th.

The AFR data is submitted via the state's gateway local government portal, and the actual AFR report is simply an output of that portal.

There's no narrative or customization or even notes.

It's simply a data report that is generated by and available to the public on a gateway system.

The ADFR can be amended at any time, and it is frequently uh in the early days after submission, particularly if additional information can be added or errors are discovered or adjustments related from an uh related to an audit R.

We've amended ours a couple of times and may well again, especially if there are any audit results that would require adjustment, or if we discover other in the past, we've exported a version of the AFR in the PDF form uh from gateway and posted it on the city's website.

Unfortunately, these exported PDF reports do not pass accessibility checkers, and so I'm honestly still mulling over the best way to handle this.

Um, but regardless of whether it is available on our website, it is available to you and the public and the state's gateway role.

Um the AFR data is presented on what's called a cash or regulatory basis, which is the way that we like every unit of government in Indiana conduct our business.

And that means that the ending fund balances, expenditures, revenues, etc., are the same numbers that are shown in our financial system and are the same numbers that you see while reviewing the budgets and considering appropriations.

I think for that reason, this report is the particular interest to you and other folks interested in city government budgeting revenue.

The annual comprehensive financial report or ACFR is the audited financial statement that is required of all units of government that issue debt.

The ACFR is presented according to government generally accepted accounting principles or gap standards, which among other things presents financial information on a modified approval basis.

This provides a much broader view of the unit's overall fiscal health, but is also more challenging to interpret sometimes because it doesn't match the numbers that we all use and see in budgeting and operations.

Those are those cash uh cash basis numbers.

The ACFR is due by the end of September for the previous year's business.

Um as I think you're well aware, the city has been behind on these required filings for a number of years.

I gave City Council a presentation on this issue back on March 14th, as you remember.

The update though is that the auditors have actually scheduled the exit conference with us for Thursday, April 2nd, uh, which means that this very long process is nearly coming to an end for the 2024 report and the audit.

A city council member is required for this exit conference, and council member Pete Montsmith will be attempting to uh fulfill this requirement.

However, any of you are allowed to attend if you would like.

For the 2025 at least, we are intending to be completely back on track.

We have already provided an extensive amount of required information for 2025 to our GAAP compiler.

This is the CPA firm that converts our regulatory basis financials to GAAP financials, and have already completed and turned over some of the most time consuming inputs, including the actuarial analysis of our pension and other post-employment benefits liabilities.

We hope to beat the statutory deadline of September 30th by a wide margin, but in any case, are confident that we will do fully back in the track.

So that's my update.

Thank you.

Um any questions for the controlling.

So uh are there any penalties for lateness and reward not having one?