Agenda Packets - 2004/03/22 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Item No. 9B Meeting Date: March 22, 2004 Type of Business: Council Business Administrator Review: _______ City of Mounds View Staff Report To: Honorable Mayor and City Council From: Charles Hansen, Finance Director Item Title/Subject: Resolution 6215 Approving Transfers Between Funds for the Year 2003 The attached resolution approves transfers between funds for the year 2003. Many of the transfers are in the amount originally approved in the 2003 budget. In several cases, operating results during 2003 dictate that a different amount be transferred. The General Fund operations from 2002 produced a surplus of $1,047,972 that was held in the General Fund in anticipation of budget cuts from the State of Minnesota. This resulted in a fund balance that exceeds the high end of the range recommended by the Office of the State Auditor. That range is 30% to 50% of the next year’s budgeted expenditures. In order to avoid prolonged criticism from the Auditor, I am recommending a series of steps to reduce the balance in the General Fund. First of these is to cancel all budgeted 2003 transfers from other funds into the General Fund. This will help the other funds that also have budgetary stresses of their own. The second step is to make several transfers from the General Fund to other funds as of December 31, 2003. These are designed to correct deficiencies in other funds or to make resources available where they will most benefit the City. Community Center operations suffered during 2003 due to the cost of changing banquet center managers and the cost of damage from the lighting strike in June. Insurance may cover most of the damage, but that hasn’t been settled yet. The Community Center should also be building a reserve to pay for future, major repairs such as replacing a roof, furnace, parking lot, or other significant building structures. The YMCA contract calls for this reserve to be built at the rate of $20,000 per year. An extra $100,000 is included the 2003 transfer to make up for the years 1999 through 2003. We recently completed the first ever analysis of the Vehicle and Equipment Replacement Fund. It was not surprising that the funding was deficient since it wasn’t know in the past what level of transfers should be made to the fund. It is proposed to