Agenda Packets - 1994/12/05 - Laserfiche WebLink

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ON OF REQUEST FOR COUNCIL CONSIDERATION Agenda Section: 13. 111106 STAFF REPORT Report Number: q4_1 1 94WS EW AGENDA SESSION DATE DECEMBER 5. 1994 Report Date: 12 1 94 DISPOSITION Item Description: FINANCE — THIRD QUARTER REPORT Administrator's Review/Recommendation: - No comments to supplement this report - Comments attached. • The Long Term Financial Plan(LTFP) occupied much of Staff's time during the third quarter. A new addition to the LTFP was a five year forecast of reveneues and expenditures. The LTFP was adopted August 8, 1994. • Fixed Asset Accounting software was purchased in September. The new software will allow Staff to produce reports that previously were done by hand, thus saving a lot of time. The conversion to the new software is completed and Staff is checking data for accuracy. • Preparation of the 1995 Budget was a major task of the department. Conversion to the program budget format was challenging, however, Finance Staff, Department Heads, the City Administrator, and other budget preparers met the challenge. One of the most demanding tasks was converting past expenditures and budgets to the program budget format in order to have comparison data. One can not imagine how many times I heard budget preparers say, "You want me to do what with my last year's budget numbers?" and "I have to balance it to what?" Congratulations to all budget preparers for surviving the process! • The Mayor, Cathy Bennett, and I attended a joint meeting of the Western Bank Citizen's Advisory Committee and the Board of Directors. Cathy reported on the City's economic development activities and the board seemed very receptive to having the Bank work with the City on developing a housing rehabilitation loan program. I was convinced by Mark Malone to be photographed for one of the Bank's newspaper advertisements. Have you seen my smile in their ad? • Installation of audio/visual equipment in the Council Chambers was completed in August. The equipment was used for the presentation on the Proposed 1995 Property Tax Levy and 1995 Budget in September. Staff is still learning how to best use the equipment. Would like to use the notebook computer more, but there are limitations to the graphics software we presently have. We are looking for presentation software and hope to be able to use the equipment more often. • I attended the Minnesota Government Finance Officers Association Annual Conference in Alexandria in September. Got a lot of useful information and networked with other finance officers.