09-05-18 Personnel and Finance (#6)

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®CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK them so we are just trying to better understand what all of them do and see if we need to roll them up into our department or just leave them where they are. We want to maintain our double-a(AA) bond rating and increase our safety training. I was excited to see that Code Enforcement brought that up.And like I said a moment ago,we are implementing our new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, or our accounting software, in 2019. That is going to be a huge lift not only for us but for any of our departments that touch the system. That will be a big lift for all of us. Committee Chair White opened the floor to questions from Committee and Council Members. Councilmember Davis asked, In the August 29,2018 City budget overview you sent out to us,was it a typo that said our deficit is $77,237,436? When it said the grand total showed surplus or a deficit? Ms. Hockenhull replied, That is not a typo. A lot of that is due to us receiving the bond funds in 2018 and now we are spending them in 2019. So looking at that cash reserve report and also looking at the individual Funds will give you a clearer picture. I sometimes cringe giving out these summary reports because they don't always mean what they look like they mean. Councilmember Davis interjected,Because when you look at this it looks like we owe$77 million. Ms. Hockenhull replied, But a lot of it is, say, we got a $25 million bond at the end of 2017. So that showed up in revenue in 2017 but when you get to 2018 that revenue won't show up but the expenses will show up in 2018. It is not a typo but it is very explainable. Councilmember Davis followed up, It's very explainable? So when I try to explain this or try to explain this, is there any way to what you just did and what you said for you to break that down? And then when you look at bonds, what is your vision and opinion of when we have too many bonds? Could that affect our credit rating and make other issues? Could you plan on giving us some dialogue on that next week? Ms. Hockenhull replied, Yes, absolutely. That is most of what we are going to talk about next week. Committee Chair White asked, When you look at how much money has been identified for vacant and abandoned homes, at what point do we consider us having addressed all the homes and have spent enough money? Could you give me a sense of how much has been allocated, spent, and how many homes have been demolished or renovated?And what is the percentage that is still left? Ms. Hockenhull confirmed, I will follow up with you on those numbers. Councilmember Jake Teshka left the meeting at 6:18 p.m. Ms.Hockenhull stated,Central Services became a division of Administration and Finance in 2018. This (referencing a slide in the presentation) is their budget here. We've got some numbers upon the screen that you can hopefully see. Their budget is roughly$9.6 million. Within that it includes about$4.5 million of utilities for the entire City Government as a whole. That is managed through Central Services because it then allows us to put an administrative fee to our departments for looking at the utilities and making sure we are managing them. That allows us to fund our Facility EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1227 W.Jefferson Bvld'South Bend,Indiana 466011 p 574.235.9221 J f574.235.9173 TTD 574.235.5567 Iwww.southbendin.gov 17