We are now at and in fact beyond 6 30.

So let's call to order the meeting of the finance committee on Monday, July 21st.

Like to uh turn to the first item on the agenda, which is to approve the meeting minutes.

And I should also say all members of the committee are present as are all members of council.

Um is there a motion to approve the meeting minutes from the May 5th Finance Committee meeting?

So moved.

Uh motion is made.

Is it a second?

Second.

Motion has been made and seconded.

Any discussion, hearing none.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

The ayes have it.

Thank you.

Um we've got an hour.

Um I'd like to reserve the bulk of the time to uh for the third agenda item, which is communication from assistant director boss, who is right here in front of us uh regarding Winterhurst Capital Projects update.

But first, let's dispose of what I think will be a short deliberation on proposed ordinance 21-2025, which is the third, yes, it's the third quarter proposed third quarter transfers and advances, um, which is really a rather uh ministerial um budgetary piece of legislation.

Um, council members, unless there's any preliminary comments, I'd like to call upon Director Mahoney to uh walk us through the proposed ordinance.

Director Mahoney.

Uh sure, thanks.

So um this is has already been approved as part of the 2025 budget.

This is just one quarter of the um already approved total uh transfers as you can see in the ordinance from general fund to aging and winterhurst, and then um from wastewater treatment to debt service and wastewater treatment to uh just between the the two wastewater treatment funds.

Um again, like I said, this is pretty much just uh administrative uh already approved in the budget.

So anyone has any questions?

Okay.

Thank you, Director.

So in this case, we do not have advances that may come in the fourth quarter version of this uh proposal as a refresher of our memory.

Transfers is a um for plain English terms, a grant of funds from one account to another or one fund to another.

An advance is a timing differential, so often at the end of a fiscal year we'll loan temporarily cash from one account to another, usually for a purpose related to it, such as um you know, health insurance or similar uh matters, or it might be a construction project that uh is is uh extending into the following calendar year.

But we're not talking about that.

So this is really a transfers ordinance, and I think what the director is referring to is that the proposed ordinance is not yet approved, but the proposed budget numbers are conforming to the uh fiscal year 2025 budget.

We anticipated making these uh allocations.

So from the general fund uh Office on Aging would receive if we were to pass this 225,000 dollars, Winterhurst would receive 100,000, and then debt service payment uh transfers include wastewater treatment um TP wastewater treatment plant improvements fund, half million dollars to the debt service fund, and and then another three hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars to the wastewater treatment plant.

Um those are um some long standing means by which we've uh finance debt.

So um with that, I don't have any um questions beyond what's in front of us.

Do you open the discussion up to council members?

Council?

Sure.

Just uh just to clarify for my my my beginner knowledge of finance, the the debt service payments are payments that we're making on um improvements that have already happened.

That's uh or ongoing and we have we have taken the money out and these are yes, payments back.

Yes.

Not necessarily completed, but the the uh the funds have been secured and now we're paying them back.

That's correct.

Thank you.

Mr.

Baylor.

Uh yeah, it's it's so uh every time we do this, I it makes me think it's like uh and I'm trying to equate it to like a household budget, right?

Uh yeah it's it's so uh every time we do this I it it makes me think it's like uh and I'm trying to equate it to like a household budget right so if you have a home and you or say you have a rental property I guess um which is later tonight we'll talk a little bit about but um normally you just pay it out of your money right your mortgage payment but in this instance we issued bonds against our future revenue from wastewater you know sewer fees or water fees and so as those revenues come in they go in one account right that is the enterprise fund for water or sewer and we can't because of public accounting rules or whatever just pay you from that account.

We have to move it to the debt service account in order to pay the creditors from that.

So it's simply and that's so that I think public accounting sets it up that way so that there's certain funds dedicated to certain things.

You can only spend certain money on capital that's improvements that's infrastructure there's some money that's a little bit more fungible you can spend on capital or operating so these funds all do that type of thing.

Is that am I explaining this correctly as a layman?

Yes that's correct uh so we have to do this to put money into the account to pay the creditor but technically the creditor can't get the enterprise account they can look at the debt service account something like that.

Yeah.

Yes good explanation.

Yeah that's a good reminder.

Thank you Mr.

Baker so in many ways this is internal accounting for some years the city of Lakewood is done uh well we've been audited by the state as part of our routine uh practices best practices for some years and in the last eight ten years I think we've earned top marks so we've even longer than that I believe yes so we continue to to follow these procedures.