MINUTES OF
MEETING
NORTH SPRINGS
IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT
The regular meeting of the Board of Supervisors of the North Springs
Improvement District was held Thursday, April 7, 2005 at 4:00 P.M. in the
District Office, 10300 N. W. 11 Manor, Coral Springs,
Florida.
Present and constituting a quorum were:
Matt Lauritzen
President
Bob Miner
Supervisor
Also present were:
George Keller
Manager
Dennis Lyles
Attorney
John McKune
CH2M-Hill
Ed Goscicki
Severn Trent Services
Roger Moore
Severn Trent Services
Patti Hitchcock
Town Center
Joni Hayworth
District Staff
Dan Daly
District Staff
Jean Rugg
Severn Trent Services
Michael Hollander
Resident
Commissioner Udine
Parkland City Commission
Mr. Lauritzen called the meeting to order at 4:00 p.m. and called the
roll.
EIGHTH ORDER OF BUSINESS
Discussion Items
D. Room Rental Charges at Heron Bay North
with WCI
Mr. Keller stated this item is continued from previous meetings and
relates to not only the focus on the room charges, but some issues and questions
raised about the agreement NSID has with the Heron Bay Community Association
that the association has in turn with WCI Property Management. We have taken some time in the last
month to look at the issue, talk with the staff involved and looked at the
contractual issues. Mr. Lyles will
relate more on that, and staff is pursuing what we think are some of the issues
and questions. To do that and go
over a period of some six years it is going to take more than the 30 days we had
so far.
Under the contract NSID has with the Heron Bay Community Association it
calls for an annual independent audit to be conducted if requested. That has not been done in the past it
has been requested. We received
written response that it has been started and initiated and is to be completed
within 60 days of the initial request, which will place it 45 days from
now. Additionally, administratively
we are going to continue to look at things as your management company in terms
of some of the practices and some of the things that are happening or not
happening to address some of the issues and questions. Thirdly, the management company, Severn
Trent, is going to bring in an outside firm to do more of an operating forensic
audit, in terms of business practices and things they are doing at the
association and at the property, to take a specific look at the operational side
not just the financial side.
A contract exists between the District and the Association in terms of
how the property should be managed, they in turn are contracting with WCI
Management Company. Quite frankly
we believe that though there may have been good reason six years ago to have
another agency act as the contracting agent for the District to have a property
manager deal with that because it is something they specialize in, it is our
recommendation at this time that the District have more direct control of the
operations of the commons property and that is a good thing as far as practice
and business right now to ensure things are done in a way we feel are best and
in the interest of the District, being a public agency and publicly owned
property. Under the contract it is
probably best we pursue working with the association and WCI Property Management
to dissolve the agreement, take direct control of it and acquire a property
management company we have a direct working relationship and control
of.
Mr. Lyles stated the contract authorized in 1999 was in concept so this
staff and Board that you pay, primarily Severn Trent, would not become involved
in the day-to-day operations of the clubhouse facility that serves a very
limited part of the NSID. It was
proposed and believed at the time that the community association would be taken
over and operated by the residents who are paying the assessments that fund the
operations of this facility rather than having it done by the District itself
and the Districts management company.
At this point with the questions being raised concerning compliance with
the contract and how invoices are handled, a large part of this seems to be
there are a lot of hands and a lot of processes. There is a property manager who hires a
subcontractor to do operational matters; the property manager then goes to the
community association for budgeting and administrative guidance who ultimately
reports to this Board, this District and this management company. There are too many layers involved as
this matter has evolved. The
manager’s recommendation, and I certainly join it, is that we look into
dissolving the relationship with this community association. It has not worked out as being less
cumbersome; it is getting to be more cumbersome than we envisioned and if you
let Severn Trent, as your manager, directly supervise operations and the
finances of the Heron Bay Commons facility we will streamline the whole matter
both operationally and financially.
We will need the approval and direction of the Board to approach WCI and
initiate the discussions regarding dissolving the contractual relationship with
the community association since they still control the community
association. We bring it up for
your consideration. You do not have
to take action on it today. We
still have the audits, the forensic operations audit and the separate financial
audit of Heron Bay Commons in the process.
This is where it seems to be headed and I want you to at least be aware
that is the thinking we have and you can either authorize staff to go forward
with that plan today, wait to see how the audits come out or wait one meeting to
see what response you get. We would
not just terminate the agreement; we would only terminate the cause. We feel there is a mutual termination
that works in everyone’s best interest and is the way we would approach it.
Mr. Lauritzen stated I appreciate your thinking. To be fair to WCI we should see the
audit first. I appreciate the good
work you gentlemen have done on this.
To raise it to our interest because if it is not being run as efficiently
as it should be, then there is a problem and to be fair to everybody I would
like to see the audit. I do like
the idea of making Severn Trent our property managers to have more direct
accountability for it. It makes a
lot of sense.
Mr. Miner asked how close are we to the HOA taking it over
completely? Is $1,000,000 or
$200,000 left on the bond?
Mr. Lyles responded we do not know the answer to that question, but
apparently there is a substantial amount of construction left before they reach
the point of a mandatory transfer to the residents from WCI.
Mr. Miner asked if it is close enough can’t we just say get rid of
it? Say here is your final
assessment and if you want it you can have it. I want to know how close it is to being
paid off. If it is $100,000 then
assess everybody in the community what you have to assess them and say you can
have it. If it is $2,000,000 then
it is a different story.
Mr. Lyles stated I believe it is more than $100,000 to $200,000. The amortization schedule is at least 20
years and we are only five years into it.
At this point it is a substantial amount to pay off those bonds.
Mr. Miner asked is there anyway to find out?
Mr. Lyles responded we will get the underwriters to run some numbers for
us.
Mr. Udine asked who is paying for the audit?
Mr. Keller asked are you talking about the independent financial
audit?
Mr. Udine responded correct.
Mr. Keller responded my understanding is it will ultimately end up with
the District under the provisions of the contract.
Mr. Udine stated if you choose to pay for it that is your business but I
think you should make WCI Property Management pay for the audit since you have
not asked for one for five years and the only reason you need one is because
there are potential possible mistakes in management. The Heron Bay Community Association
should not pay for it either. There
should be a separate charge and WCI Property Management should be paying out of
their standard budget and not pass it off to the residents of either your
District or the Heron Bay Community Association.
Mr. Keller stated let me clarify my response. The District is the owner and ultimately
the responsible party for the Heron Bay Commons facility and it is an
operational expense of Heron Bay Commons for this special audit, in accordance
with the management contract; that is what the contract provides for.
Mr. Miner asked who is paying for the original audit? You said there is the original audit we
are doing according to the contract and another forensic audit so I understand
there is two audits going on.
Mr. Keller responded the forensic operational audit is something Severn
Trent is conducting right now and we believe it is an appropriate thing to do
and worth the investment.
Mr. Udine stated my second question is with respect to the
documents. I know they have not
been giving you all the documents or at least that is what your staff has
represented and I cannot figure out why.
In connection with my conversation with Mr. Lyles, WCI Property
Management to the extent they are in that building they are a public entity the
same way the District is and subject to Sunshine Law and public records
law. The excuses they are giving
you that they cannot find certain things, that you did not find certain things
and I did not find certain things in my capacity we would have big problems and
you should not be accepting those same kind of excuses that you have employees
in that facility who are subject to confidentiality agreements which are against
Florida public policy when you are dealing with public records and those are
things that should be looked at. In
that regard you are doing an excellent job. You have taken an issue that has been
lying around for a long time that people have been aware of through reading
minutes of your meetings and I know it is not a comfortable thing. It is not a comfortable thing for me to
bring all this stuff up I do not want to deal with it, but I think it is time we
all get our hands around this and fix the problem.
Mr. Keller stated the combination of the independent financial audit, the
operational audit and the administrative work in looking for some of the records
and asking for information. If it
is there, we should be able to have it; if it is not, we need to know why, and
if it is public record it should be there.
Mr. Hollander stated first I want thank Mr. Keller for our meeting the
other day and the time that Mr. Lyles spent with me on the phone. I also ask this Board to get a criminal
authority in to look at the criminal activity going on. I have two bills from 2002 which were
approved and paid for. If you look
at these bills, and I know Mr. Lyles is familiar with them, this is called
stealing. I urge this Board now for
the second month to get a criminal investigation into this matter. It is just not fair and too much
stealing is going on. They are
running private businesses out of there.
If you approve a bill and pay for it, are you getting back the
money? When I came to you a year
ago and told you they were running private businesses out of that building you
did nothing about it. I do not
know, maybe this Board has problems.
Mr. Miner stated I would watch what you say. You will not accuse me of
stealing.
Mr. Hollander stated I am not accusing you of stealing. That invoice to me is stealing my
money.
Mr. Miner stated if somebody has taken something, we have a lot of
integrity and we will find out.
Mr. Hollander stated a year ago when I came here and told you they were
running a profitable business out of a non-profit facility, $400,000 and the
community gets nothing back what did this Board do?
Mr. Lauritzen responded I appreciate your concern. We have two audits going on. To be fair let’s get the results of the
audits.
Mr. Hollander asked no criminal?
Mr. Lauritzen responded this could be a bad entry into a logbook, we do
not know what this is yet.
Mr. Miner stated I would like to apologize if I lost my
temper.
Mr. Keller stated we are going to take care of business and do what needs
to be done for the benefit of the District and all of its constituents. Any information we come across that
moves things in one direction or another we will tell you and we will take the
appropriate action to follow up on it.
Mr. Lauritzen stated I have all the confidence in the world that it will
happen.
THIRD ORDER OF BUSINESS
Consideration of Agreements
A.
Commercial Utility Maintenance Agreement
with North Springs Plaza, LLC
Mr. Moore stated as we do commercial
sites in North Springs we now have an agreement, which we have the owner sign
that we still own and maintain the lines, but it limits our liability, making it
their responsibility for all repairs above the lines. It is a fairly standard agreement we
came up with approximately a year ago.
We did forward it to Mr. Lyles, we have used it four or five times and I
recommend we approve.
On MOTION by Mr. Miner seconded by Mr.
Lauritzen with all in favor the Commercial Utility Maintenance Agreement with
North Springs Plaza, LLC was approved.
B.
Construction Trust Fund Agreement #403
for Heron Bay North Two Drainageways
Mr. McKune stated this item was on the
agenda last month, but there were some typos in the agreement and they have been
corrected. This is an agreement for
drainageway work and Mr. Lyles is familiar with this issue.
Mr. Lyles stated this is another standard
form of agreement. There were some
corrections needed by staff and our engineers and those have been made. It is now ready for your consideration
at this time.
On MOTION by Mr. Miner seconded by Mr.
Lauritzen with all in favor the Construction Trust Fund Agreement #403 for Heron
Bay North Two Drainageways was approved.
SECOND ORDER OF BUSINESS
Approval of the Minutes of the March 3, 2005
Meeting
Mr. Keller stated each Board member received a copy of the minutes of the
March 3, 2005 meeting and requested any additions, corrections or
deletions.
There not being any,
On MOTION by Mr. Miner seconded by Mr.
Lauritzen with all in favor the minutes of the March 3, 2005 meeting were
approved.
FOURTH ORDER OF BUSINESS
Consideration of Work Authorization #141 Parkland Village Bond Issue and
Engineer Design Funding Agreement #404
Mr. McKune stated
this is authorization for the engineer to assist District staff with preparation
of the preliminary statement, cost exhibits and testifying at bond recordation
hearings for an area of development known as Parkland Village. We estimate it to cost approximately
$15,000 with the work being done on an hourly basis.
On MOTION by Mr. Miner seconded by Mr.
Lauritzen with all in favor Work Authorization #141 Parkland Village Bond Issue
and Engineer Design Funding Agreement #404 were approved.
A.
No. 2 with Triple R Paving, Inc., for Nob
Hill Road, University Drive (Phase 2 and County Line Road for a Net Increase of
$179,722.76
Mr. McKune stated on this change order
the detailed backup represents approximately 140 items of change requested in
the construction contract by Broward County. The total net cost of the change order
will be paid for and it is an obligation of WCI. This change order results in a reduction
of the District’s portion of the project and we recommend
approval.
On MOTION by Mr. Miner seconded by Mr.
Lauritzen with all in favor Change Order No. 2 with Triple R Paving, Inc for Nob
Hill Road, University Drive, Phase 2 for a net increase of $179,722.76 was
approved.
B.
No. 5 with Triple R Paving, Inc., for
Heron Bay North Drainageways for a Net Increase of
$24,000
Mr. McKune stated
this also is a total WCI cost and represents work WCI wanted to contract to
basically clean up the site at Meadowbrook.
On MOTION by Mr. Miner seconded Mr.
Lauritzen with all in favor Change Order No. 5 with Triple R Paving, Inc., for
Heron Bay North Drainageway for a net increase of $24,000 was approved.
C.
No. 6 with Triple R Paving, Inc., for
Heron Bay North Drainageways for a Net Increase of $272,070
Mr. McKune stated this is also total WCI
costs and represents the addition of quite a bit of mitigation area from the
shallows along Nob Hill Road.
On MOTION by Mr. Miner seconded Mr.
Lauritzen with all in favor Change Order No. 6 with Triple R Paving, Inc., for
Heron Bay North Drainageways for a net increase of $272,070 was approved.
Change Order No. 8 with Florida Sewer and
Water, Inc. for Heron Bay North Plat 1 Phase 1 Access Roadway Plan and Lift
Station TPC #9 (Cypress Point) for a Net Increase of
$6,750
Mr. McKune stated early this week we had a request from WCI to add
another change order for this meeting.
It did not make the agenda package, which is a little off specification
based on our current process. I
indicated I would bring it before the Board today to see how you would like to
proceed. If Mr. Keller would like,
I can hand out copies so that you can look at them.
Mr. Keller stated if I may, we had some discussion on these kind of
issues before, where things come in at the last minute. We are not trying to be difficult about
this and the reason we recommend we do not entertain these unless they are in
the mode of being a life safety emergency is all other agendas go through the
process, this being a public agency with public interest, so that we have a
chance to properly research the information and be able to give you a
recommendation, that it is timely, appropriate, accurate, etc. and that you make
the policy decision on the record and you do that based on good sound
information. When they come at the
last second we cannot do that and I recommend you not take those kind of actions
because it is just not a good business practice and I suggest we return this, if
it is not a life safety emergency, back to the applicant and tell them to meet
the same deadline as everybody else.
Mr. Lauritzen stated Mr. McKune does not do this too often.
Mr. Keller stated I understand he was gifted with it from somebody
else.
Mr. Lauritzen asked is it something that needs to get done right
away?
Mr. McKune responded this is about $6,000 worth of demucking work. If we do not get it approved today, it
means that the subcontractor is going to wait thirty days to get paid.
Mr. Lauritzen asked is it a WCI expense?
Mr. McKune responded yes.
Mr. Lauritzen stated let’s go ahead and do it this time with a heads up
for them the next time that we would like to slow down on that, but there is no
reason to keep a subcontractor unpaid; I do not want to be a part of that.
On MOTION by Mr. Miner seconded by Mr.
Lauritzen with all in favor Change Order No. 8 with Florida Sewer and Water,
Inc. for Heron Bay North Plat 1 Phase 1 Access Roadway Plan and Lift Station TPC
#9 (Cypress Point) for a Net Increase of $6,750 was approved subject to
management review.
A.
Heron Bay North – Banyan Isles – Drainage
Outfall into Canal C-4N
Mr. McKune stated this is a fairly
proforma drainage outfall request.
This is the next development area for WCI and they will be discharging
into the District canal system. We
have written our letter of recommendation with usual
requirements.
On MOTION by Mr. Miner seconded by Mr.
Lauritzen with all in favor Heron Bay North - Banyan Isles – Drainage Outfall
into Canal C-4N permit was approved, subject to the conditions outlined in the
Engineer’s letter dated March 10, 2005.
B.
Parkland Golf and Country Club POD 11 –
Drainage Outfall into S2-4
Mr. McKune stated exactly as the previous
item for this area.
On MOTION by Mr. Miner seconded by Mr.
Lauritzen with all in favor Parkland Golf and Country Club POD 11 – Drainage
Outfall into S2-4 permit was approved, subject to the conditions outlined in the
Engineer’s letter dated March 2, 2005.
SEVENTH ORDER OF BUSINESS
Consideration of Quit Claim Deed for Parkland
Village
Mr. Lyles stated this request involves an existing right-of-way for a
canal previously conveyed to the District prior to the property being
developed. The property is now in
the process of being platted so it can be developed. The applicant has a representative here
to give you further detail, but essentially it is a very simple transaction by
which they are asking us to quit claim the original dedication of the canal
right-of-way back to the current landowner so the landowner can design with a
new alignment with modern engineering principals for a canal, outfall and all
the stuff that goes along with a drainage project to serve his development at
which time it will be reconveyed to the District through the platting
process.
Ms. Hitchcock stated the right-of-way we are speaking of is the S2-1N and
it is presently a substandard right-of-way. It does not comply with the 130’ wide
requirement. The culverts are in at
Trails End and are going in on Nob Hill so we do have the two fixed point;
however, with the proposed plat of the property there will be a bend in the
conveyance systems along with some widening. The conveyance of the right-of-way to
the District should be on your agenda next month. We will be giving you more than you are
giving us.
Mr. Lauritzen asked what are you going to be building there? What kind of
density?
Ms. Hitchcock responded I hope the city will approve 177 single-family
homes, 78 age restricted condominiums, 45,000 square feet of commercial, 10
units above the commercial and a 12-acre elementary school site. The 12-acre elementary school site is
proposed to be given to the Broward County School Board.
Mr. McKune stated to wrap up this particular item, we have a letter we
can put in the record indicating we reviewed the item.
On MOTION by Mr. Miner seconded by Mr.
Lauritzen with all in favor the Quit Claim Deed for the Parkland Village was
approved.
EIGHTH ORDER OF BUSINESS
Discussion Items (continued)
A.
NSID – Pine Tree-SFWMD Interconnect
Project
Mr. Moore stated I wanted to bring you an
update. As you remember I have been
approached by SFWMD to participate and give us half the funds to have an
innerconnect between Pine Tree and east face of the NSID. We are going to do that at approximately
the intersection of Riverside and Sawgrass Expressway. It has to be constructed by October
1st. We mentioned we
could possibly change the order of one of the North Springs projects so we could
have our consultants prepare a set of plans. This came in this morning and they have
indicated the culvert will connect at the two closest points between Pine Tree
and NSID. It consists of
approximately 300’ of pipe with a 36” control structure. Once it is constructed we will go to
Pine Tree and Cocomar and possibly get some recharge. The primary use of this will be instead
of allowing Pine Tree to discharge to the Hillsboro canal we will hopefully be
able to take some of their excess water instead of dumping it to the ocean. We anticipate this cost to be somewhere
between $50,000 and $75,000, of which half will be paid by SFWMD. We do not have an exact cost estimate
yet and what we want to do is update you at the next Board meeting.
B. 20” Water Main Plant Transmission Line
Project
Mr. McKune stated
as you understand we do have a water treatment system for North Springs. Before development occurs on an adjacent
parcel we would like to put in some additional piping that we have been talking
about for ten years. There is a
commercial parcel to the southeast of the plant that is now being talked about
for development. What we would like
to do prior to the next expansion of this plant is put in a second discharged
water line from the plant that is sorely needed. On a temporary basis we will come out
with a short piece of pipe that will be used prior to the next expansion and
then put in a permanent 20” extension that goes across the north side of the
plant and then into the commercial parcel.
It will go into the commercial site, up the western boundary and tie into
the North Springs water main on Westview Drive. We estimate this will cost approximately
$75,000 to $100,000. We can either
put this job out to bid separately or perhaps change order it into an existing
project. We will look at it both
ways to see which is the most advantageous to the District. This is a discussion item to make you
aware of what we would like to bring before you.
C. Parkland Isles Special Assessment for
Landscape Maintenance
Mr. Keller stated we had some discussions
on this item the last time regarding the formally landscaped berm owned by the
District in the Parkland Isles area that suffered a good deal of damage and loss
of landscaping and trees during the windstorms/hurricanes of last fall. The Parkland Isles Association has voted
to assess themselves to restore and re-vegetate the trees and landscaping. We are trying to get a grasp on the best
mechanism by which to do that. I do
not know if we have made much more progress on determining what we have done in
the past, whether we pursue a special assessment in the near future to secure
those funds, or do we roll it into the uniform method at the tax collectors
office in the fall and do it after the fact since it is not an emergency
condition, or whether we advance funds from the District and look for
reimbursement through the uniform method later on to save the extra expense time
and work to do a special assessment.
Mr. Moore stated staff has discussed this
with former staff members and we have done this before some time ago in one of
the other districts; they checked the bond documents and it can be done. We would ask legal counsel to verify
that and this can be done by having a special hearing. The special hearing has to be specific
on what the charges are going to be and also recoup the cost of mailing. It is not that simple but that is pretty
much it. The HOA did tell us that
is what they want even though the public hearing will notify each and every
homeowner and they will have the ability to come here and either say pro or con
against the assessment. It is a lot
simpler, from staff’s standpoint, to assess it in October on the tax bill. If we wait to do the improvements until
that time they will not happen until December or January. The HOA in this particular area would
like to have it done prior to that.
We have an opportunity since funds are available to possibly advance fund
it. We think it is feasible; we do
not know if it is possible.
Mr. Keller stated it will also allow us
to have a fall planting schedule which is good and you don’t have to try to rush
it during peak summer. What
approximate dollars are we talking about?
Mr. Moore responded $40,000 for
replacement. They approved an
assessment of around $70 a unit of the three options
available.
Mr. Udine responded I was at the Parkland
Isles association meeting last month.
They have a landscaping committee and they are in agreement with
this. They want to pay and have it
done, but it is your property so you have to deal with that. This is something the community wants
and factors into your decision.
Mr. Lyles stated as Mr. Moore said we
have not internally gone through this to lay out the exact process to
follow. You have three options: the
classic public notice, hearings, mailings and for a one time assessment of $70 a
unit that seems like a lot. We can
advance funds with a repayment as a result of the budget process. We can, as a third option, do short term
borrowing as a District for up to two years. Staff would like to find the quickest
way to get the improvements done at the least financial and administrative cost
to all concerned. At this point the
advanced funding by NSID and going through the $69 assessment process, as part
of the budget is the quickest, cheapest and simplest to do it, unless something
pops up in which case we will have to go to plan B.
Mr. Keller stated we will bring final
information to the next meeting.
NINTH ORDER OF BUSINESS
PowerPoint Presentation by Severn Trent Services for Management
Services
Mr. Keller stated at last month’s meeting we said we would follow up with
a PowerPoint presentation in terms
of your management company, Severn Trent Services, as well as a look at how the
District is working and is organized.
Mr. Lauritzen asked do you want Mr. Mendolia here for
this?
Mr. Keller responded I think it has value to show it now from a timing
standpoint. We are running in a
cycle similar to CSID and then if you want a workshop for more detail because
there are some shared issues and resources and a lot of inner tangling that
would be good to know to keep it in a good coordinated timeline. We can always present it again to him,
we would be more than happy to do that.
Mr. Keller introduced Mr. Ed Goscicki of Severn Trent
Services.
Mr. Goscicki stated by way of introduction I am the Vice President and
Regional Manager of Southeast US Operations for Severn Trent Services. The Board requested we talk to you about
who Severn Trent is, who is this management company that morphed over the years
from Gary L. Moyer & Associates, as he grew and we bought the firm out seven
years ago, to who is the parent company and how do we work and who are we. There we some issues facing the District
in terms of the change over, some concerns about who staff is, how we organized
and who are the players. NSID is
really all about water utility and drainage services. They have 9,600 customers, operate a 7
million gallon a day water treatment facility, maintain water for the collection
and distribution systems, have over 1,000 acres of lakes as part of the drainage
systems and amenities in the property.
Over 7,000 acres of land, 43 wastewater lift stations, 14 miles of
gravity sewer, 2,000 sanitary force mains and 1,300 pipe
ins.
STS holds our values very high in everything we do. This is not just a plaque we put on the
wall. It is not just our mission,
vision, value statement in hopefully every office of Severn Trent you walk into
because it truly does define how we operate from the top of our corporate
structure down through. The
important elements are we value hard work, honesty and teamwork. The parts that are important to you are
that we hold ourselves accountable to the highest standards of ethics, trust and
quality. We are very happy to be
part of the solution with the issues that have come up and the ethics, trust and
quality are telling you how we conduct business. We respect and always strive to do what
is right for our customers, our employees, our suppliers and the communities we
serve. Not only are we in the
business of trying to make a profit but we are in the business of working as a
team with our employees, with our staff, with the community and doing what is
right comes first and foremost for us in terms of our customers, employees and
community. Who are we? We are a large corporation, Severn Trent
Services, and we are part of Severn Trent PLC, our parent company. Our parent company is British owned and
traded on the UK stock exchange. It
was originally an outgrowth of Severn Trent Water, which is one of seven major
now private water utility companies in the UK. To give you an idea of the size of what
went on in the UK, in the 1970’s the UK, with France following shortly after,
took over the utilities within the country and regionalized them. Picture if you took all of the utilities
in Florida and regionalized them onto the water management district’s and that
is essentially what they did. They
created new entities called major regional utilities and gave them all
utilities. Severn Trent is one of
those, so it is a large organization.
Severn Trent Services is a US based company headquartered in Fort
Washington, Pennsylvania just outside of Philadelphia and our business is
primarily in the water and wastewater industry. We are in the business of producing some
water and wastewater equipment, disinfectant equipment. We have a metering service group; we
have a contract operations group where our primary business around the US is we
provide contract services for water, wastewater and utilities, so we would be
your contract operator. We have a
pipeline services group that does specialty work in water, wastewater
collection, distribution, analysis and correction. Hydrostop is another specialty equipment
group and we have the management services group which is the group you are most
familiar with. It is primarily in
Florida. We have a group in Florida
and a group in Texas, which does HOA management. Our group in Florida is the group you
know who are involved in district management and some municipal management
services.
In terms of Severn Trent and Severn Trent Services operations, we are
spread around the country where there are major population centers; our regional
headquarters in Florida is in Sarasota, the bulk of our employees are in Coral
Springs. We have 350 people in
Florida both in operations and management services. I head up both operations and management
services in Florida. In management
services we have over 120 employees, most of them work down the street in the
University Drive building. We have
over 60 employees on fiscal management, records management and IT services. The management issues have been bouncing
around as far as roles and responsibilities and we will get into it a little bit
in terms of what is our job as your manager and what you are paying us to
do.
Shared staffing issues have arisen, such as who are your employees, who
are our employees, who are other employees, who are the people actually involved
as your staff as district employees, the cost of services, how that is being
applied and of course we are interested in continuing excellence in our
operations. In terms of what we do
we have two separate contracts with the District. One is for management services and the
other is for financial services dating back to 1996. The management services contract, and
these come right out of the contract in terms of services we are providing,
management, consultation, coordination and policy implementation, the kind of
things Mr. George Keller does with you on a regular basis, board meeting
preparation, attendance, the development and analysis of your budget, contract
negotiations and administration of the contracts, and we consult on operation
and maintenance. We do not manage
your operations and management. You
have your own staff operating your facilities, but we have our own technical
staff as well as Mr. Roger Moore on site who provides consultation and
oversight. We supervise and manage
your district employees. We are
responsible for records management, and records management as we talked today
involves a lot more than Ms. Jeannie Rugg showing up and making sure the minutes
get done and the agendas get out.
It is making sure all of your records are available in compliance with
Sunshine Laws and Public Records Law.
The financial services are responsible for accounting, budgeting, your
risk management program, insurance requirements, special assessments, utility
bills and the customer service associated with it. The accounting function we will talk
about as we move forward.
STS personnel -- who are the people involved on this project; in terms of
general management, Mr. Gary Moyer is still a contract employee of Severn Trent
and actively engaged with Severn Trent on a retainage basis and stays actively
involved in CSID, NSID, a few of the districts here and a few of the districts
in the Orlando area where he lives now.
He keeps a role with us as a senior consultant, special counselor and
also does a few other activities.
Mr. Keller has been with us for a year and I have been with the firm for
three years now. As a unique part
of my background and of relevance to this District, in the former part of my
career I was the executive director of environmental services for Broward
County, I am quite familiar with the NSID structure and relationship with county
government, how it all works and I have a working familiarity in environmental
services with response to water, wastewater, drainage and solid waste. I personally have a decent understanding
and history and used to live right down the road. Under records management Ms. Jeannie
Rugg is backed up by 14 recording secretaries. Budget and fiscal analysis, Ms. Karen
Ellis, who you have not met yet, heads up our accounting department, we have
some 22 accountants working under Ms. Ellis providing accounting services for
all of our districts. Mr. Michael
Szymonowicz is responsible for budget and
budget analysis. Mr. Mike Murphy is
in our Sarasota office, his particular expertise as part of our operating
services was as a CFO for a private utility for some 10-15 years, and brings a
particular background in helping to put together the budget for this District
having done that on the private utility side. Assessment roll people are in this
building, Mr. Luis Hernandez, Ms. Luvinia La Cap and
Ms. Reesa Weaver. Technical
support, some of whom CSID has seen and who have been involved with a few other
districts, is a benefit you have not seen much of in the past and these are our
operating service technical support people who we are trying to bring more in to
service to our management service clients.
They are technical experts on water and wastewater issues, utilities
operations, design and construction, who can work with you and your engineers to
help on some of your operations. We
point all of that out because you are used to seeing two and three people and
many of our districts think Severn Trent are the three people who show up at
their meeting. It is important for
you to see there is this large support organization behind them and there are a
number of people actively working on your programs on a day-to-day basis that
you do not see and who are supported by an even larger group who are available
if we need to bring people in.
How are you organized? Board
of Supervisors obviously sits on top, you have three tiers supporting you. You have your attorney, your management
company and your engineer, the three primary entities and all of them are
contracted to the Board. They are
there to meet your day-to-day needs in running the District. This is where it gets a little
confusing, where you go beneath the management services company, and it is
really unique to a number of the districts in the Coral Springs area and the
history of the company and how this evolved. You have a number of employees who are
strictly Severn Trent as part of the management team and then you have a number
of other staff members who are shared employees. These are your employees, CSID employees
and in some cases other district employees. Ms. Joni Hayworth is one of those employees,
and she is unique because she is a part-time employee of yours, CSID and a
part-time employee of ours.
Mr. Lauritzen stated I like to think of Ms. Hayworth as a star
player.
Mr. Goscicki stated we have several other staff members like that; Mr.
Dan Daly is an employee of both CSID and NSID. Mr. Jan Zilmer as your HR Manager and
Ms. Susan Walker as your accountant are shared employees. What is unique about this is they are
not our employees; they are not really your employees. They are really independent employees
who are part-time for you and other districts. At one point in time they were our
employees. There have been
transitions back and forth on some of those key employees in terms of when they
were District employees, Severn Trent employees and now they are District
employees again.
When the districts first started coming together this made a lot of sense
in terms of how the districts were organized and structured. You did not have to hire at North
Springs Improvement District an IT Manager to manage your utility billing
system; you could share that expense and resource with other districts and you
had Gary L. Moyer and then Severn Trent Services as the coordinator of that
activity, so even though they were not our employees we coordinated and pulled
them together and got them operating as a cohesive group providing services to
those individual districts. The
challenge now is the Boards have grown, you are no longer WCI, and you are a
resident controlled Board. When
this first started it was the same developer over everything. You can turn around tomorrow and say we
want to do something different with our utility billing system, we would like to
outsource it, we would like to take it all in house, we would like to do
whatever, we would like to have Severn Trent do it. If you were to make that decision it
would have a significant impact now on CSID because CSID is the other half of
that coin and you have no contractual relationship with each other at all, no
interlocal agreements between you about the sharing of resources and the
resource is really independent and the management team is the one who has pulled
it together and created that efficiency.
It is not a bad plan but you need to be aware of the liabilities
associated with it. You are getting
the efficiencies from it but the liability is that CSID can pull the rug out
from under you or vice versa, independent of any consideration on your part
because there is no legal relationship right now. There are several other shared employees
that exist down through the operating side; field staff, customer service staff
and utility service billing are shared.
It is not just the three staff members sitting on the side. Again, there is some value in sharing
the expertise and not having to go out independently to hire all of that
expertise on your own. You have a
combination of staff. You have
shared staff, NSID employees, and your contracted employees.
From 1996 through today responsibilities have shifted between NSID and
Severn Trent Services, as some of these staff members have moved from side to
side. We still have responsibility
for general management, and the accounting function has become kind of a shared
function now. At one point the
accounting staff was ours and we owned that. You now have an accountant, Ms. Susan
Walker, and we have kind of separated this responsibility where we have Ms.
Walker doing accounting and we are doing budgeting and fiscal analysis. In this transition we reduced our fees
to compensate for the fact that you have now taken on an additional
employee. Mr. Jan Zilmer at one
time was our employee and is now back to being a District employee, so human
resources was on our side and it is now your side of the ledger and again the
fees were adjusted accordingly.
Records management is ours.
Utility billing is a shared responsibility where we are involved and Mr.
Daly is your employee but we own the computer and you own the license on the
software, we have the license on the software, we own the hardware and you own
the staff. We are a team.
Historically Severn Trent staff have transitioned back and forth between
NSID and Severn Trent, principally Mr. Zilmer, Mr. Daly and Ms. Walker as well
as Ms. Hayworth. With that, our
fees have shifted back and forth.
As we have shifted staff to you we have reduced our fees. We have looked at this and think there
is some reconciliation that needs to be done. Some issues we need to look at are our
accounting services we are charging you and we need to look at it in light of
what you are doing with your own accountant. If this is the way the Board wants to
continue we probably need to adjust our fee down a little bit more. That is one area in particular we need
to look at just because the way our contract is structured our fee is approved
as part of your budget each year.
It is a good working system but it does not create great documentation
unless you go back through the budgets and look at the formation. Again, we have talked about the shared
personnel, general accounting, Ms. Walker, utility billing and customer service,
human resources and operations.
Moving forward we need to further define roles and responsibilities. We have some concerns with accounting
being an isolated function; you have a single accountant doing your work and we
feel as your manager we have financial responsibilities to you. The employee doing the accounting and
responsible for day-to-day transactions is not ours and has no accountability
back to us. We need to look at that
issue and get some resolution there.
We need to determine options for service delivery; what is the best way
to do these things. Utility billing
is an issue only in terms of we have pulled a lot of other functions off of the
computer, and Severn Trent’s need for this computer. We used to keep a lot of financial
management on there and we have centralized it on one system; we need to talk as
we move forward as what is the best way to deal with utility billing for
you. Do you want to buy that
computer, meanwhile who buys it because you use it, CSID uses it and eight other
districts also have utility billing on there. We need to realign the contract with the
services we provide and make sure what is in our contract is representative of
the services we are actually providing and the fees are in line. Again, we are not seeing any major
problems in terms of the structure; we just want to make sure the Board
understands what the structure is and who the employees are. We are ready to move forward and we see
this as an evolutionary process and not a revolutionary process.
Your budget process coming up now is probably the best time to start
addressing some of these issues, getting clarification in place and getting
those discussions in front of the Board.
The purpose of today was to let you know a little bit about Severn Trent;
who we are, the kind of services we can provide, and then talk to you about the
structure here and how it was put together.
Mr. Keller stated the last point was valid and important in that whatever
we want to adjust in line for services with contract organization as can do
through the budget process and we can start to have the information to you and a
workshop in the very near future as a venue to do that.
Mr. Lauritzen stated you cleared up some things for me as far as whose
employee is whose. I understand it
better now and it makes a little more sense.
Mr. Lyles stated other than the matters
we already discussed, we are close to having our Codification Bill through the
process in Tallahassee. I had to
rewrite part of the bill twice this month.
It is in the hands of the Legislative Bill Drafting staff now and they
have their own set of concerns.
They call me, email me and give me a status report daily because of the
critical point we are at. As I said
I had to make changes at the request of the legislature staff, nothing that
works to our determent, but as we knew there were some outmoded provisions in
the bill because it is 35 years old.
For instance, we had a special statute of limitations shorter than for
other public agencies or private parties in the State of Florida and they are
saying that is prohibited by general law, you cannot have that. I said I know but it is a codification
bill and I cannot change it. They
said we can and we are going to and we wanted to let you know we are doing that
because of our finding it is superceded by general law, so instead of just
wiping it out they agreed to let me rewrite part of it to make it very specific
that this District is covered by the state’s sovereign immunity and we are an
agency of the state and therefore all of the limitations on liability for the
District and officers of the District apply to us. They accepted the provision we prepared
and we have had some back and forth like that. Everybody has given a green light at
staff level, we have our sponsors, we are expecting to have it passed and
modernized by the next meeting.
B.
Engineer
There being no report, the next item
followed.
Mr. Keller stated the group that Mr.
Goscicki described is working the budget process this year and doing it in a
more collective fashion than may have been done in the past, which we think will
be a benefit to the District and the Board to get a lot more eyes on it to make
sure it is a comprehensive process.
We look to probably next month to have a preliminary draft for you and
give you a starting point to work from.
Then in June hold an actual workshop session, if you like, on the budget
which we recommend and will be happy to do as a very valuable exercise, with
additional feedback in July and hold the public hearing in the July/August
timeframe.
ELEVENTH ORDER OF BUSINESS
Supervisors Requests and Audience Comments
Mr. Lauritzen
stated I would just like to say for the record with these difficulties we had
the last couple of months with WCI and the management of Heron Bay, I appreciate
your job as the manager and Mr. Lyles I appreciate your job. As I have said before we have all been
upside down here with management changes and WCI management changes and all of
that and the timing of all of this stuff.
Yeoman’s job and thank you very much. You all are doing a great job on this
and I have all the confidence in the world that it will all be taken care of and
done right.
TWELFTH ORDER OF BUSINESS
Financial Statements and Approval of Requisitions and
Invoices
There being no questions or comments,
On MOTION by Mr. Miner seconded by Mr.
Lauritzen with all in favor the invoices and requisitions were approved.
There being no further business,
On MOTION by Mr. Miner seconded by Mr.
Lauritzen with all in favor the meeting was adjourned at 5:34
p.m.
Salvatore Mendolia
Matt Lauritzen
Secretary
President