Financial Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

Good evening.

Good evening, Lars. OK, cams are back on.

Great.

Hi, everyone.

Hi, Bill. Welcome. Bill, how are you?

Well, thank you. Recording in progress. Hello, Bill.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Hey, Brandon.

Lars, I believe we're waiting on Marcos.

Yeah, Marcos asked me for the Zoom meeting ID, so you should be coming in momentarily. But Alba, if you want to, you want to swear Bill in?

Yeah, I mean, let's go for it. We don't need a quorum for that. All right, Bill. William, if you could, yeah. Let's see.

President of the state of Florida.

And being that.

And being that I am a.

Financial advisory board member.

A financial advisory board member.

Do hereby solemnly swear.

Do hereby solemnly swear.

That I will support and obey.

That I will support and obey.

The Constitution of the United States.

The Constitution of the United States.

And the state of Florida.

And the state of Florida.

And that I will in all respects.

And that I will in all respects.

Observe the provisions.

Observe the provisions.

Of the charter and ordinances.

Of the charter and ordinances.

Of North Bay Village.

Of North Bay Village.

Congratulations, William.

Thank you.

Welcome, Bill, officially.

Thanks very much. It's a pleasure to be here.

Welcome. Happy to have you on the committee or board. Sorry.

While we're waiting for Marco, by the way, Liz and Sid have called in absent for tonight's meeting. So we need Marco to have a quorum and then we can move forward.

Okay.

And then I'm going to ask that we move item four to the top since we have Brandon waiting from his office and we can release the accountant from being on the meeting. Okay.

Okay. Sounds good.

Good evening, everybody.

Good evening.

And sorry, Brandon, you are from our audit firm, right?

Yes.

Good.

Yes, that is correct. I'm with CBiz. You're independent auditors.

Okay, great.

And there is Marko.

Hey, Marko. Good evening. Welcome. All right. So we have quorum. So I will call this meeting to order. Financial Advisory Board, Tuesday, March 10 at 634. And let's do a roll call of the advisory board members. Bill Prendergast.

Here.

Thank you. And then we have Marco Zuniga.

He just connected to audio. Marco? He's on his phone, but I see him on the screen that his name is there.

Okay, that's good enough for us?

Yep.

Yeah, good. And then we have Lars, we have the board members on, and then we also have Richard Chevroni, Commissioner, Frank Rollason, City Manager, Maite Camiotia, City CFO, Brandon Lopez, City Independent Auditor, and Alba Shang, City Clerk. Good. So first agenda item we've already covered 1A, Oath of Office to William Prendergast. And we are moving up agenda item 4A, Update on the Villages 2023-2024 Financial Audit. And I guess I'll give the floor to Maite and Brandon.

Thank you very much. Sorry, go ahead, Mady.

Oh, I'm sorry. Just wanted to introduce Brandon. It's our first year with CBiz as our auditors. We've been working very, very, very hard these last months trying to get this accomplished. But I thank him for being patient and getting back to us every time he needed something and And he's just been an awesome person to work with. I give it to you, Brandon. Just let him know what our annual financials are for governmental.

Sure. Thank you very much, Manny. I appreciate the words. And good evening, everyone. My name is Brandon Lopez. I'm a partner with CBiz. We're your external independent auditors. And my goal today is just to give you a little overview of kind of what this process is, where we are on the timeline. And in the next meeting in April, it will be the kind of more formal full presentation once we've issued these reports. But just, you know, especially if you're new to the village, if you're new to the board, Florida statutes requires that local governments go through what's called a financial statement audit. Year end for municipalities in Florida are September 30 year ends. The September 30, 2024 audit is what the village is undergoing currently. Like Maite mentioned, we were engaged in July as the new auditors after an RFP process, and we began working with the village on some preliminary audit procedures. We began the audit in its entirety in this January, January 26, once the village was able to put together and reconcile their books and records for 2024. The villages behind on their audits, the Florida Auditor General and the state of Florida requires them to be issued nine months after year end. So we're working diligently with management to make sure that we get these issued by the end of this month. The state has reached out to the village to let them know that, yes, they're past the deadline. However, there's been an extension granted up until March 31st. Anything after that could have associated penalties or withholdings. We've been working on the audit since basically January once the books and records are ready for us. And we're happy to say that we've provided a preliminary draft to management of those numbers. We're in the process of finalizing the audit with the goal of issuing honor before the end of the month. So based on the audit progress we had our weekly meeting on Monday, everything is on track to meet that deadline. There will be a more formal presentation once we have the final numbers, once we have the final report in your April meeting. We'll have some recommendations for the village for them to help work on their financial close, and that way they can instill that for the 2025 audit.

So we can make sure. really reliable for the decision making process.

One thing with the audit, as the independent auditor, our main goal is to make sure that the numbers that we produce and when we put our name on this report is something that we can, you know, we can rely on.

Our And where we're at today. Progress is a more. And I'm the liaison prior year. Was terminated. Our village at the time. Available or not. yes, there's kind of a lag in getting the information. And like Richard mentioned before, and that transition period, it looks like the, when things are completed. That was the program that we tested this year. Every year, there's always something.

The federal awards that we did, we tested, we're not gonna see any issues on compliance on that end. So that's definitely a positive.

Okay, great. Thank you for that. And what would you, since just like Commissioner Chevroni mentioned, the members in this financial advisory board, we're new, right? But we may not be as new in the finance domain. So we have various experience from within finance. Where do you think we could be of best value?

So what I'm going to mention, and obviously in April be more deep dive into it. When a commissioner mentioned what used to be called a CAFR, now it's an ACFR. It's the annual comprehensive financial report for the city. So it's, it's the set, basically it's your financial statements of the village. But with government accounting, it's, it's very different than when you're looking in the commercial world because it's more focused on on your current year money inflows and outflows. And then you also have your more long-term financial statements. So really truthfully, the most important thing on the day-to-day or the month-to-month is really looking at that fund level, which is your current year activity. Like what did we budget? Did we expect this money to come in? Is it being properly appropriated? and properly being spent. So making sure that that money that is budgeted for the expenses are in line with those budgets. And if there's, variances or if there's anything that does exceed it, there might be a reason. And it's just to get that understanding of what's causing some of these variances and what are the reasons for it and what are we doing going forward to either push projects to the following year that didn't start in the current year that we budgeted for or vice versa. So those are the types of things that I would look for, especially when you're gonna be presented those budget to actuals and those variance reports. And again, ACFRs are very different than when you look at regular basic financials. But in April, it'll be a more lengthy presentation because I'm going to show you what each report is and what value it brings to the reader of financials that you can use to make the best decision possible for the village.

Great. Thank you. I appreciate that. Looking forward to the April meeting for sure. Great. Thanks, Brandon. Marco or Bill, any questions for either Brandon or Maite?

No questions. Sorry, I had audio connection problems, but I am here in case I need to testify that I'm present.

Great. Thank you. We hear you now. Loud and clear.

Thank you. And yeah, no questions from my point of view either. I think it's really, like you said, it'd be interesting to dive in in April though. Absolutely.

So Lars, this is Frank. Good evening, everybody. To the end of what Brandon was talking about, we started a quarterly report that's very simplified on the general fund that shows the status of the revenues and the status of the expenditures by department. So It's not detailed, but it would show us if we were out of line with our projected expenditures for the budget. So you will see what police has budgeted and what police has spent and what public works and utilities and the building department and all that. All that's broken down. And so it's a good measurement for the department directors too to see exactly where they are along the line. And then on each of the expenditures, when they come for myself and the mayor, or if I'm absent, the village clerk signs for me and the vice mayor signs for the mayor if she's absent. Then we have a item that's attached to each one of those invoices showing that specific line item, what the starting balance was, you know, the start of the beginning of the year and what the current balance is. So we get an idea there how fast they're running through the money, even though they're within the budget, we're still only in the second quarter. And then depending upon what the department is, like for instance, in the area dealing with the computers and that technical side, sometimes the director there spends money up front that he was planning on buying equipment or whatever he had to do. And we look at that. And then in the police department, you have more expenditures that go on, you know, evenly through the year. So that report is provided to the board also at the end of the quarter. So we'll be doing one at the end of March. It'll show you where we are from October 1 through, you know, halfway through the year.

Okay, perfect. Thanks, Frank. I think that would be super helpful for us to kind of dig into the numbers on a continuous basis. Great. Thanks, Frank. Any other topics to discuss for this agenda point?

If there's no other questions for Brandon, we will allow him to Leave the Zoom.

Thanks, Brandon. I'll get back to work. Thank you, Brandon. Nice meeting you all. I hope you have a great rest of your meeting and a great night.

Thank you, Brandon, for coming. Looking forward to see you next month.

Absolutely.

All right. So we'll move back up to the agenda. So we have 2A approval of the February 10, 2026 meeting minutes. So could I get a motion to approve these minutes, please?

I'm happy to motion for that.

Thank you, Bill. Everyone in favor, say aye. Aye. Thank you, motion passed, minutes approved. Moving ahead to old business, 3A. Our favorite topic, update on the community center and Treasure Island Elementary School project. I see it cooking.

It's cooking. It's moving.

Cooking more and more for every day.

It is. They're moving along. Let's see. The latest details that are happening is they have... framed out the inside. They're in the process now of roughing in the electric and the plumbing inside. They've also poured the slab on the roof with the lightweight concrete that'll be the area that we have rooftop access for events and so forth. That has been done. And you'll notice when you go by, a large portion of the building has this black coating on it. which is the moisture protector uh from the block wall because where all of that is black is going to have a metal cladding an aluminum cladding on it and then you'll notice on the west end it's been painted the dark blue and that's the color of the paint that'll be on it and uh They're really working now on the sidewalk path that goes completely around the school, the walking path, the jogging path that goes all around. And I've been giving them permission to work on Sundays because that's a pretty quiet operation, framing up the sidewalk. And then they pour concrete during the week to extend the sidewalk as it comes around. So we're at the point now where they are now getting the sidewalk out from around the school And they are extending on to the large soccer field where it's going to come around that soccer field also. So that is in the works that's going on now too. So that's really where we are with the, once they dry in the roof, that's when they put the actual moisture barrier, the water protection, the TPO that they're going to put down. That's coming up. fairly quickly as I understand it. I haven't talked to them. I've been out of town for a couple of days. I haven't met with them this weekend, but I know that's coming fairly quickly. And once that's sealed on the roof, they will start the drywall inside. So when you come around and you look at the building, you'll see on the east side, the windows are not in there because on the second floor, that's when they're going to put the drywall in with a lift, get it into the building so they don't have to take it up and down the stairs. And so they're, They're moving on it. They've got the wells in for the drainage. They've got the soccer field has all of the drainage in that. They've got all the muck, the soft material has been removed. They have compacted the hard base on the large soccer field at this time. And the artificial turf is already on site to do the installation work. on the soccer field. They have begun the installation of the lighting on the soccer field with the poles. By now, since last week, they may all be in because they asked to work this past Sunday to install the light fixtures on the poles. So they're clicking along. That's what's happening with that one.

Thank you. Yeah, I know that last time we spoke, the last meeting, we said that we were doing good in terms of budgeting and expenses. So I assume no unpleasant surprises expense. All right.

So there's an item coming before the commission this next Tuesday night, which will be the first amendment to the agreement. with PFL. And the additional money that we have to do for the third floor, which we agreed to do and fund, is on that amendment. Working out the approval of the cafe on the first floor, that's on that amendment. And the last thing we added on the amendment just the other day, and it's about $150,000 last week, and that is the rough in and installation of the low voltage stuff, which had not been taken care of in the initial design. So the TVs, the alarms, the Wi-Fi, all that stuff is another addition. And we approve, you know, the commission hopefully will approve that on Tuesday night. And money-wise, we're you know, unless something really weird happens out there, we're in good shape on that one.

Great. Thank you. Bill, Marco, anything from you guys?

Uh, nothing yet. I was going to say, um, I I'm obviously new here, so I don't want to jump into, uh, head first too strong, but, um, is that something like the budgeting, um, proposed? Well, the actual budget change orders. Is that something that we generally review?

We'll keep you up to speed with it. Uh, so that you know what exactly is happening. There's really not, uh, This should be the final change unless something, you know, additions that we're putting in because there's nothing more anticipated. The bulk of this, the expenditures that we had to make from the village side are finite. So we're meeting those requirements on our side. There is a provision in there. If some of these areas run over, it's on the village to make up the difference. However, we haven't run into that. situation yet. If anything, they've been coming in a little lower than what the anticipated costs were going to be. A lot of it is the labor and being able to let them work Saturdays. And I let them in there on Sundays when they're not making something that makes a lot of noise. And by adding that time, they've been able to accelerate the work, which You know, if you say they can't work Saturday or Sunday, then you're extending the time and, you know, it's just the money keeps piling up. So the quicker we can get it done, the better it will be. So we're good on that side.

Okay.

Great.

And the only thing I will add to it is we're already looking forward to the grand opening of the community center. We have created an ad hoc committee. I believe Lily Torres, our director of community engagement is the liaison to that one. They are meeting tomorrow night for their first meeting where they will plan the activities that will be taking place for the grand opening of the center that's forthcoming in the very near future.

Great.

And with that, I guess we don't have a date because that was going to be my question. No, not yet.

Not yet. But they've got their plans. They want to have that soccer field operational before FIFA because they plan on doing some practices on that. So they're hustling. We're hustling. We're helping hustle. Helping them hustle. May or June, by June, they want to have the building where at least people can go inside and maybe not be completely finished, but They're big pushes to get that soccer field operational.

Yeah. Okay. So that would be end of June then, I would imagine, right? Because July is when the actual games start.

Yeah, that's the plan.

Yeah, okay.

The weather's been good for us. Even though we're in the drought, not having the rain has really helped them to move along, especially with the concrete pours and the sidewalks and all that, you know. And they've been able to move pretty quickly on that.

I think that's going to change next week.

Yes, I see that.

Hopefully not too bad.

Well, we do need to rain.

Yeah, for sure. Okay. Any other points or questions? No. Okay. Thank you so much, Frank, for that update. Then, well, we're going to continue with you, I guess. 3B update on the Village Hold project.

Okay, so where we are on that, the last go-round of plans, we had some things that we were waiting on FDOT to finally make some decisions on, and they did. They were favorable to us on some type of report that they thought was going to be required, and now they've backed off of that. I don't know exactly what the details were, but it was good to hear. We didn't have to wait on that. So those plans, if they haven't been resubmitted already, they will go back to our building department and our planning and zoning. They'll run through the final review. And unless there's something found we don't anticipate, we'll be ready to put it out to bid. So we have the five contractors that were willowed down from 10 that applied. And a committee evaluated those 10 and got it down to five that will receive the packages to bid. Now, to speed that up, we gave them all, those five, a set of plans of about 95% complete. So they've been able to work on them now for a couple of months to do their takeoffs and get their ideas of what their, you know, their bids are going to be. And then they'll get the final one that we will give to them that has all the final details. And the idea being that we'll have it out for maybe 45 at a maximum of 60 days for them to complete their bids. And our target date is that with the agreement we have with the county because of the fire station, that we need to break ground before August 30th of this year. So that's our deadline. We're looking, hopefully we can speed that up a little bit, but that's when we have to start to be in compliance with that agreement. And then the objective is if we're able to keep that schedule, we would have the building completed sometime in January of 28. Hmm. Now, on the money side, the last we submitted is a certain amount of documents to the county fire department to evaluate. And they are waiting for this audit that's just being completed. So that's the final thing they want to take a look at that audit because, you know, it's an audit from back from a couple of years now. So they want to see what shape we're in there and then get their blessings because, For them to put their front money up, I think they give me $2 million right off the bat when we break ground for the fire station side. They're paying about $7.5 million toward the fire station, $7.45 or something like that. And for them to release that money, we have to make them assured that we have the funds in place to do this total project. And so that's why we're supplying them with the documents that we want. So that's moving along. Great.

Good. Bill, Marco, anything for Frank on this topic? I have no questions.

No question either. Thanks for the update.

Okay. Thank you so much, Frank, for that update as well. We'll move ahead to staff commission liaison updates. I guess, Commissioner Ciavroni, do you have any additional points for us today?

The only thing I will fill you in is in what's upcoming at the Village. First of all, Sustainability and Resiliency Advisory Board got us a living seawall for Vogel Park for free. Not for free. They got the donations. It's not costing the village anything. We're getting a brand new seawall in front of our current seawall. That's a living seawall, which has... If you go via the sea, it's going to be very attractive because it's going to have some native plants growing out of it. And it has some grooves on the seawall, which will allow for living sea creatures to make a home there and procreate and... bring this came back hopefully one day to what it should be uh also this coming a week from today we have our village commission meeting starting at 6 p.m you do not have to be present but you should look into the commission meeting at least parts of it if not it's taped and you can hear it at your leisure in portions to know what's going on with the village And on Saturday, April 4th, we have our annual Spring Fling. On each one of the quarters, we try to do one major event for the community. The Spring Fling basically, in the old days, used to be called the Easter Egg Hunt for the kids. It's broken up by categories, and the kids are going to have an egg hunt. And there's going to be activities for the whole family at Vogel Park. I believe it starts like at 10 o'clock in the morning, I'm sure. You will see it all over the place. informational channels of the village with lily involved with it and last but not least we are all willing we're awaiting the information of our annual financial audit by cbiz which will be completed before the end of this month uh I am sure there's going to be some findings because of what I mentioned earlier about the lack of a CFO, lack of overseeing in the department, changes in management, things that were left hanging, and we've had to redo the whole function for 23-24. Uh, 24, 25 is going to be a much easier. Normally we just, this board only will look at the one year at a time. You have the opportunity this time of seeing two audits done pretty much simultaneously. Cause as soon as they're through with this, within three months or four months, we expect the next one to be submitted. And, uh, it's going to be very interesting, uh, reviewing the annual financial forms it's going to be a very next meeting will be a little bit longer and a little bit more comprehensive because the the finance report is broken into four or five tabs or five sections and once you get the hang of it it's really easy reading and some interesting reading for those of you who are finance nerds like we like some of us are And unless there's a question for me, that's all I got at this time.

Okay. Nothing from me. I also saw Roger joining. Thanks for joining, Roger. Anything from you that you want to bring up?

Roger was invited to the meeting because Frank was out of town and he has surprised us with his presence at the meeting.

Okay.

just in case we needed a backup pinch hitter to fill in on Village Hall and community centers. Thank you, Roger, for showing. No problem.

Thank you, Roger. Maite, anything additionally from you that you want to bring up?

No, I'm just working late hours here in the office today because I'm trying to get the final statistical area of the annual financial completed. And just waiting for CBiz to give us our final draft so we can review. We've already been looking at the numbers and they look good. I mean, comparing, I also have a consultant that's helping me, CRI Yvonne. She's also doing part of the audit area so that we can get it completed to Bren, which everything has been turned in. She's working on the management letter right now. The transmittal letter has been submitted to CBiz already, and that's from the village. And I think we're fine. I think by next week, Monday or Tuesday, we should have the final draft completed, all the notes and everything. Okay.

Good. Yeah, I'm sure that our next meeting will have a lot to look through and talk about. Yeah.

Yes. Next meeting will be longer.

Yeah. Well, today's meeting might be shorter, but we'll balance that out with our March meeting. Sorry. Okay, good. Thanks, Maite.

No, thank you.

Okay. Public comments. Opening up for public comments. Not sure we have anyone on for that. No closing public comments. 0.7 agenda items for next meeting. I think we have one obvious here in terms of reviewing the audit.

ACFR.

Yeah. We'll get that added to the agenda and then obviously we'll get an update on the community center and village hall project.

Do we need to have the village hall when there's really no activities going on? I mean, it hasn't even come to commission to choose the contractors yet. So we're basically at a dead point.

Yeah, true. Let's just spend that time on the budget. Sorry, the audit material next time, for sure. So we'll take that off. I think that's a good idea. Unless any objections from anyone.

Nope. And if anybody has anything else to add, just send a quick email to Alba, our village clerk, and she will gladly add it onto the agenda.

Okay. Then I think we are done. So can I get a motion to adjourn?

Before we adjourn, just a reminder, the meeting for April is planned for April 14th. Tuesday, April 14th.

Okay, 6.30.

Correct, and you'll get a reminder of it as usual.

Okay, perfect. All right, so motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn.

7-12.

Thanks, everybody.