Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

Alright. Good evening. Good evening, everyone. We'll call the Tuesday, 01/27/2026 meeting of the finance committee to order. We do have a quorum this evening. Alderman Person Molson is not with us this evening. Next item on our agenda is pledge of allegiance. Please rise. Pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Alright.

Next item on our agenda is public comment. I do not see any members of the public here this evening. So we'll move on to item number 4A, which is approval of minutes for the November 11. Were there any changes to those minutes from the committee?

Move to approve.

Seeing none, we'll make those minutes will be your throw me off Rick. Those minutes are approved by unanimous consent. We'll move into our business items, which is first of all number five a, which is a review and possible action on the renewal of a contract with ACURATE for commercial appraisal work. Sam, if you'd introduce yourself for the folks at home and the floor is yours.

Good evening. Sam Walker, city assessor. Hopefully, this will be a relatively quick action item. What we're, wanting to do is we're gonna renew the contract for accurate. The current contract is only for two years, which covers 2025 and 2026. This would actually extend it out to a four year contract. So, it would cover '27 through 2030 but also change the revaluation cycle. So we would only be doing one revaluation in that four years as opposed to two. With us making that change, the contract would actually decrease on an annual basis saving about 16,000 a year. That's all I got.

And Sam, can you remind the committee how long Citi has been working with Accurate?

This is our second year we're going into it.

And the reason is maybe just a little bit of color on the reason that we have the contractor?

So our previous commercial appraiser retired back in 2024. Yes, years are running together back in 2024. We tried to hire someone. We could not find anyone for for months. The only two people that were potentials both withdrew and with reevaluation coming down, we just decided to contract it out in the interim. It's worked out so far as far as I'm aware and as far as I'm concerned that we're happy with the level of service and the level of work that they've been doing and we would like to continue working with them.

Great. Thank you, Sam. Any questions for Sam? Aldeperson Helvanslavin?

I just want to make sure I'm understanding this right. So are we no longer going to be doing a revaluation every two years or we are but it's because it's falling in the timeline differently.

So this is part of what I call my lessons learned. When I came into this role, it was done every two years. We missed 2021 because of software, we picked it up in '23, did in '25. I fell into the habit of just what we've always done. This last year, we learned a lot and we learned that maybe doing it every two years might be overkill.

That's not to say that we might do it in two years, depending on what the market does. It could be in 2027 or we could push it to 2028. Yes. Or '29, just depending on what the market does and where we're sitting. But I think after discussions with Tony that maybe doing it in three years instead of two would be a lot easier not only for the taxpayers, but also my staff because it was an exhausting year last year after just coming off of '23. But that's just my own personal opinion.

No, that makes sense. Yes, I was just as long as we're being flexible right with market because obviously the twenty one to twenty three, well, even twenty twenty to twenty twenty three was dramatic in terms of market conditions, but that's not necessarily always the case.

And this kind of gives us a little bit more flexibility. If the market just continues to ramp up and up, we can do it in two years. If it kind of stabilizes and stagnates, okay, maybe we push it out to three. Instead of having a rigid schedule, leaving it a little bit more open. So we're saying one revaluation within the next four years. It keeps us in compliance with the state and hopefully makes the taxpayers a little bit more accepting of of of the work.

Makes sense. Thank you.

Oliver Slumpke.

So with this if we get sued by company x saying that they don't agree with their valuation and they they wanna take us to court, does it would this company help us in that particular case, or is this only for the citywide reappraisal?

No. Okay. So Accurate takes care of everything appraisal wise for commercial. Until it gets to the courts, we have the counsel that we have through the insurance company that takes care of anything when it gets to Circuit Court and beyond. In the past, it's always been Amy Seibel. I've have a really good working relationship with her. Her and her firm or or whoever is working with the insurance company will take it from there. With that being said, Accurate and Lori who's kind of our go to contractor works with them to get them all the information, get them all the data so that they're not just going in blind.

Very good. Any other questions for Sam? I'd entertain a motion. Alderperson Helven Slavin? Sure. You raised your hand.

I kind of was I guess. Yeah. So I moved to approve the renewing to approve renewing the contract with ACURATE for the twenty twenty seven, twenty thirty assessment years as presented.

Alderman Lemke? I second that motion.

Very good. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion from the committee? Alright. All those in favor sign aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? That item passes. Sam, thank you. Thank you. Item number five b is review and possible action on a contract for technical rescue services with the city of Watertown. Chief Goplin, again, if you'd introduce yourself to the folks at home and the floor is yours.

Absolutely. Good evening. Rob Goplin, fire chief. This is our standard, special services team contract. We were approached to provide technical rescue services, primarily confined space rescue services for the city of Watertown. They had a review by their, one of their insurance firms and, with their water utility. A lot of times in a water utility, you might have to enter into confined spaces and so on to do some work. They needed to bolster their rescue capabilities, and have a little bit more protection for the workers that go in to these spaces should something happen. The best way for them to do that is to contract out to a different agency. They reached out to us.

Again, our standard contract that we have with several other agencies, there's an annual fee of a little over 9,100 that covers our training costs and expenses to maintain things and so on. And it does renew annually and that's about it unless you have any other questions.

And chief this so Watertown's a new customer. Correct?

It is.

Yes. They are a new new customer. This would be for technical rescue only. So we will we offer hazmat services and technical rescue and so on. This was just for technical rescue.

So is there is there a a kind of a point of no return where the response time doesn't make sense? I mean, Watertown is far, in an I mean, in a matter

of an emergency, you can get out

there pretty quick. But what's the kind of what's the radius where we might say, you

know what? It probably doesn't make sense for us to do this.

We've kinda deemed that we're we're reaching the edge of that probably with Watertown. We're we're it really depends on the incident type and what's going on, what really how valuable that response time is. In in a in these situations, you often do have more time because of the systems that they have in place. They're probably okay in the in the space that they're in. They just can't get out. Right? In a in a lot of cases, that's the circumstance. But when you consider mobilization time of the team and the travel time, you're looking at about probably an hour to get services out there. And that's the that's really kinda on the edge of where we wanna where we wanna go.

Okay. Very

good. Other questions for chief undecided? I'll make a motion to approve the item as presented. Is there a second?

I will second agenda 262889.

Very good. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion?

All

right. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? That item also passes. Chief, thank you.

Thank you.

Brings us to item number five c which is consideration and possible action to extend the city's audit contract with Baker Tilly LLP for audit years 2025 and 2026. Mister Shiro, if you would introduce yourself to the folks at home and the floor is

yours. Yes, Joe Shiro, finance director. Coming before you today because well, we are not even close to being done with our year end close process for 2025, but we are past that date at least from a calendar standpoint. And generally speaking, really get into our year end process and then concludes with an audit process. And the existing contract that we have was for the 2022 through 2024 audit years.

And as such, was able to have an internal meeting with the water with representatives from the water utility and the transit utility, all of which are under the same contract overall. And asked them basically wanted to confirm that their thoughts on the audit team that we've had. And we've had a long a pretty long standing relationship with the auditors at Baker Tilly. And all three parties are pretty happy with the service that we're getting. It's not just from an audit standpoint, which is our financial audit and our compliance audit for federal and state grants, But also from an expertise level, they are available if we have any issues or questions throughout the year.

They're very responsive to the city's and the utilities' needs. So we did have a discussion with them about if we were to have a two year contract, what that would look like. And so there was a little bit back and forth on that. And the one thing that I want to point out, the contract that expired, it did not list and it was to the city's benefit, it did not list the compliance portion audit separately in the past, probably because we had hit or miss on whether a larger compliance audit needed to be completed or not. And I'm assuming this is me talking.

I'm assuming that they also thought it was probably more of a minimal like a minimal effort to complete that portion. Well, over the last several years, that's things have changed. And so that is like the one thing. And I'm going to just pop on the table that was attached to the memo so you can kind of see what I'm referring to. Assuming I can

do this correctly.

See if it lets me.

It's thinking. It blinked.

Alright. Hold on. We don't have anything yet though. I noticed.

In

my head this in my head this went better. Let's Let me try Wait. Hold on. There might be Oh, wait. Oh, there we go. We have it. All right. So if you take a peek at the screen, a couple of things going on. Oh my gosh, I'm sorry. I can't move the computer.

Compared what was on the 2024 contract to what is being proposed on the 2025 and 2026. And a number of things, I referred to the single audit previously not being kind of separated. Now really what that fee for single audit is, is about $4,500 per program. And it's anticipated that they would have to test two federal programs in one state. The assumption is that most years, the transit utility usually has substantial state and federal funding that they would have two of the programs that are tested. And the other federal program could be a mix of a lot

of

possibilities. One with the water utility, they still have an active WIFIA loan that they are drawing from significantly for their building project right now. So that's a very good possibility that that would be in 2025, but definitely 2026 could be a possibility for being tested. On the city and the water or the wastewater side, there could be we have clean active Clean Water Fund loans right now that still have to be closed out. Or we the other reason why we've also asked them for a two year quote is ARPA, the ARPA funding has to be spent by the 2026.

So that's actually the main reason why I asked for a two year contract quote I wanted to make sure we got through that with the familiarity of the audit team. The partners had been the same for a number of years and we feel that they would be able to do those portions pretty efficiently. Once we get through this, if assuming this gets approved, I believe it would be prudent for the utilities and the city to go through an RFP process, which we fully anticipate them in the room we agree that that was appropriate assuming that Finance Committee and Council were comfortable with moving forward with this. With that, I'll open it up to any questions you might have.

Thank you, Joe. Questions from the committee? I guess, Joe, one point that I'd make is I'm very supportive of this because I know the work that Baker Tilly has done has been very good. I do think that once things settle down a bit, like we get through ARPA and we get through the WIFIA, I think it's probably gonna be in the city's best interest to take this out for RFP at some point, probably 2027, 2028. Because it's been a while since we've done that.

Now granted Baker Tilly has done great work and this is a, I think in my opinion, a very fair proposal. But at at some point, I think we should probably at least make sure that we check the market and we're in a good spot. But to your point, I've been very happy with the work of Baker Tilly. You know, Wendy's done a wonderful job and I know she's gonna be retiring soon, but she's been great. The firm's been great. So I'll make a motion to approve the two year extension with Baker Tilly as presented. Is there a second?

I'll second.

Second by alderperson Helben Slabin. We have a motion and a second. Any other further discussion? Alright. All those in favor sign aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Item passes. Joe, thank you. Thank you. Communications. Mr. Shiro.

I don't have anything significant at this point outside of that our next scheduled meeting is February 10.

And please get your single audit questionnaires back to the finance office if you have not already. Mister Brown, anything this evening?

Only thing I have for the committee is that we are scheduling the invitation only focus groups. So that'll be happening over the next roughly month, month and a half. From there, we'll determine what we're going to do in terms of larger community forums and having discussions about budget priorities. At the same time, we'll be looking at as Joe pointed out earlier, financial projection. So at some point here in the probably next couple of months or so, we'd probably come to this committee and just give you an idea of what that looks like.

But my goal overall is to whittle whatever gap there is down to the smallest amount possible before we have another council workshop in probably July, August in terms of looking at the service prioritization and kind of where we go with that. Very good.

Any referrals? Any objection to adjourning? We are adjourned. Thank you, folks.

Thank you.