Finance Meeting Minutes for August 25, 2009

Finance Committee Meeting Minutes

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Committee members present: Becky King, James Martell, Bruce Tedtsen,

Paul Berry, Eric Hart

Committee members absent: Bill Unkel

Others Present: Richard Sirstad

Meeting started:  4:44 PM

Meeting Agenda

-          Last  meeting minutes

-          Paul will present a scoping form template

-          Will discuss how to develop an inventory of the City’s assets and how to maintain them and the costs involved, how to incorporate this into the budget, and where the money to do this would come from.

-          Discuss September meeting time

-          Any unfinished business

Roll Call

Minutes for June 26, 2009 were discussed.

Bruce made a motion to accept the minutes as written.

The motion was seconded by Jim

The motion passed unanimously

Paul will present a scoping form template

            Paul presented a scoping document for maintenance of fixed assets.  The committee discussed funding issues regarding maintaining fixed assets.  The purpose of the document would be to demonstrate how much it will cost to maintain the city’s current assets.  This document will be amended to include all future fixed assets acquired by the city.  The point was made that the city is responsible for maintenance of all the city’s buildings even though we may not have the money to fund maintenance.

The committee discussed the acquisition of the power house and tank farm which will trigger a state single audit.  Should we have a state single audit city will need to hire an accounting firm.  We will need to have fixed assets on our financial reporting for the audit so we need to keep this issue on the front burner so it can integrate with the discussions regarding our state single audit.

The committee discussed whether or not we should hire an outside firm for the purpose of doing our city-wide fixed asset inventory.

The committee discussed why municipalities depreciate assets since they are tax exempt and not subject to taxation.  Municipalities depreciate assets to demonstrate to the

Finance Committee Meeting Minutes

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Page 2 of 3

auditors and the stake holders in the community the financial health of the community.  Assets are depreciated based on life expectancies of the asset and depreciation of that asset will demonstrate when it will require replacement.

Paul will read the Fixed Asset Accounting book and pass it on to Becky then to Richard.  Jim will download some sample inventory forms to bring to our next meeting.

Discuss September meeting time

            The committee decided to meet on the last Wednesday of the Month at 4:30 PM.

Meeting adjourned: 6:40 PM

Approved this _____ day of ________________________, _________

by _____________________________________________, committee member.