Meeting Minutes 1-8-2024
MINUTES OF REGULAR MEETING OF BOARD OF TRUSTEES
HOLIDAY SHORES SANITARY DISTRICT
Monday, January 8, 2024
The Board of Trustees of the Holiday Shores Sanitary District met on the above date in regular session pursuant to laws and rules of said Board of Trustees and in accordance with the terms of the notice of regular meeting.
Richard Hayes, President and Trustee called the meeting to order. Trustees Brennan Murphy and Jeff Hebenstreit were present. Carla Lankster, District Clerk and Rob Clarkson, General Manager were also present, as well as Julie Romano, resident and Finance Committee member.
OPEN FORUM
Sarah Tebbe, the lead engineer from HMG Engineers for the Wastewater Lagoon project was in attendance to give the Trustees updates on the project. There has been no word from the Attorney General’s office, and she is continuing to move forward on the project. She has submitted everything for permits, and Ms. Tebbe will be submitting the application for the IEPA loan. She plans to submit the loan application by March 31, 2024 and she expects the District will be on the funding list in May or June, and should be at the top of the list. The funds should then become available in July, 2024. If the funds are available to the District in July, HMG should be ready to bid by September, and get the project started by November. Mr. Hebenstreit asked if the project is on track. Ms. Tebbe responded that by the end of the growing season, and once the crops are out, we can proceed with the project and implied it was on track.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
The minutes of December 11, 2023 regular meeting were submitted for approval, with the Manager’s Report for Operations attached. Mr. Murphy made a motion to approve the minutes for the December 11, 2023 meeting. Mr. Hebenstreit seconded the motion and all Trustees voted “Aye”.
FINANCIAL
The Summary of Accounts and Statement of Revenues and Expenses were reviewed for the month-end balances on December 31, 2023. No Motion necessary. The water supply account is down to $53,000.00 due to some unexpected expenses. The Water Plant loan was paid 12/1/2023. Transfers were made from WP Debt Service and Water Capitalization, and Water Supply provides the balance. Mr. Hebenstreit indicated that the monthly summary report is not in the same format as the approved budget and that it is difficult to compare to the approved budget without a lot of work. This would take a considerable amount of time if someone was going to do attempt to do this with the summary report provided. He requested that financial information be provided to the board for comparison to the approved budget. He indicated that this may not need to be done every month but that it should be done periodically so we can compare the financial status of HSSD to the approved budget. It was requested that this information be provided for the next Board Meeting. Ms. Lankster indicated she would try to provide this but did not know if she would have time. Mr. Hebenstreit asked Mr. Clarkson if this is something he could help with or if there were other options to provide this information if Ms. Lankster did not have time. Mr. Clarkson said they will see what they can do.
DISBURSEMENTS
December 2023 Accounts Payable disbursements were reviewed. Mr. Murphy made a motion to approve the December 2023 disbursements. Mr. Hebenstreit seconded the motion and all Trustees voted “Aye”.
Certop, Inc. Invoice #011012024.06, dated 1/1/2024 for $5,435.00 for December 2023 Class A Water Operator services was submitted for payment. Mr. Murphy made a motion to approve Certop Inc., Invoice #011012024.06, for December 2023 services. Mr. Hebenstreit seconded the motion and all Trustees voted “Aye”.
Mr. Hayes signed the invoice from Unsell, Schattnik & Phillips for legal services from 9/12/23-12/6/23 in the amount of $405.00. There were no other invoices for Trustee signature this month.
APPROVAL OF APPLICATIONS Water/Sewer applications for December 2023 were reviewed. Mr. Murphy made a motion to approve the December 2023 applications. Mr. Hebenstreit seconded the motion and all Trustees voted “Aye”.
OTHER
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Ms. Julie Romano has continued to research Grant Opportunities for the District. Ms. Sarah Tebbe was still in attendance to discuss Grants and other funding that she is familiar with. Ms. Tebbe stated that there is an Illinois Clean Energy Audit where an organization will come to the District and do a study to determine where changes can be made to be more energy efficient. She mentioned the town of Beckemeyer, Illinois that was able to obtain a grant for solar energy.
Ms. Tebbe also talked about Federal dollars that become available for loan forgiveness. If an entity receives a grant, and it is not used by January 1 it will then go into Bypass funding. Then that money becomes available, but only if an entity is ready to start using the funds for their project. Loan and grant funding can include parts to be able to maintain the system. However, replacement parts would not qualify. Ms. Tebbe also said it would be an advantage to contact the District’s Political Representative to try to get funding and grants, because they may know what is coming available.
Two Operations employees have been taking on-line training for the Class A water license certification. The District does not currently have a Class A Water Operator on staff. The next test for certification will be the week of February 12, 2024. A monthly update will be given, until the District has a Class A Certified Operator. Mr. Hebenstreit is requesting that the training be complete, before they take the test again.
Mr. Hebenstreit discussed the Ordinances being made available electronically. He stated that he does not think Mr. Clarkson should have to do work outside of regular business to convert older ordinances. There should be tools available to convert them to an electronic format provided by HSSD. He thanked Mr. Clarkson and his family for working to convert these personally outside of HSSD time and indicated that he felt this should be tabled until we get the proper tools to convert them within HSSD.
Guidelines need to be created for summer credits and leak credits. Nothing new has been decided. Mr. Hebenstreit would like to keep this on the agenda, but table it for this month.
NEW BUSINESS
MSD Mowing Service submitted a proposal for the 2024 mowing season. His prices have not increased over last year. He is no longer providing the 4-step fertilizing, so there will be a proposal from a different company for that. Mr. Murphy made a motion to approve the MSD Mowing proposal for the 2024 mowing services. Mr. Hebenstreit seconded the motion, and all Trustees voted “Aye”.
There were three bids submitted for an upgrade of the accounting software to cloud based software. Mr. Daniel Brown attended the December meeting and gave a presentation of the UPM, Utility Process Management software. The initial set up and training is quoted at $40,788.50, with monthly maintenance and fees of $2,992.63. No representative from the other two bids will be coming to the meeting. The second bid was from BS&A Software. The initial set up of cloud accounting modules, conversion of Asyst data to BS&A and training was proposed at $62,850, plus $14,110 in travel expenses. The annual service fees for the first two years were quoted at $17,120 per year. There are also additional fees for some equipment. The third quote was from Ampstun Corporation for Accounting modules, limited data conversion set up and training. The services were not comparable for $31,430, plus $5,000 per year maintenance. There was also an inquiry with the software the District is currently using, Asyst, through Central Square. They can Lift the current Asyst Software to the cloud, with no upgrade, or we could switch to an upgraded software, which they verbally quoted at $80,000 per year, regardless of number of customers or size of the company. They did not follow up with a written quote.
Discussion ensued between the Board and HSSD staff regarding the pros and cons of the different software suppliers. Mr. Hebenstreit indicated that this was not in the budget this year and asked if the reserves could be used for this expense. It was indicated that the reserves could be used for the initial software purchase, but not the monthly maintenance fee. Based on the quotes and the presentation given, the Trustees decided to use UPM Software. Mr. Hayes made a motion to approve UPM Software to upgrade the accounting software to cloud-based software since the reserves could be used for this. Mr. Hebenstreit seconded the motion, and all Trustees voted “Aye”. Mr. Hebenstreit stated that an implementation plan needed to be developed by HSSD staff.
Based on the quotes and the presentation given, the Trustees decided to use UPM Software. Mr. Hayes made a motion to approve UPM Software to upgrade the accounting software to cloud-based software. Mr. Hebenstreit seconded the motion, and all Trustees voted “Aye”.
There was a discussion regarding some recent expenses out of the Water Supply Fund account. There were two major Capitalized expenses recently. There was a complete motor rebuild on one of the Raw Water Pumps, and the main Furnace at the Water Plant needs to be replaced. There must be a resolution to transfer funds from Water Connection Reserve (WRES) to Water Supply, to replenish the account. Mr. Hebenstreit made a motion to approve a transfer of $40,000 from Water Reserve to Water Supply to be written into a resolution. Mr. Murphy seconded the motion and all Trustees voted “Aye”.
Mr. Clarkson stated in his manager’s report that during the annual inspection of the main roof-mounted furnace at the water plant, Beloman found it has a cracked heat exchanger. The exchanger part replacement timeline is a 3-month lead time. The lead time for complete replacement of the unit is 5-7 days. The recommendation is to replace the furnace unit. Beloman quoted $22,570 to replace the unit. GRP Wegman quoted $24,437 to replace it. Earnst Heating and Cooling quoted $22,337 for the unit. Beloman is slightly higher than Earnst, but they have been servicing the unit for several years. Mr. Murphy made a motion to approve Beloman to replace the roof-mounted furnace at the water plant. Mr. Hebenstreit seconded the motion, and all Trustees voted “Aye”.
OPERATIONS REPORT
Mr. Clarkson continued with the presentation of the Manager’s Report he prepared, for the month of December. The report was discussed and is an attachment to the meeting minutes. A special note to the operations report is to get heaters to temporarily heat the water plant due to the predicted below zero temperatures next week. The water plant has valves that could freeze up if the temperature inside the plant is too low.
ADJOURN TO EXECUTIVE SESSION
There was no Executive Session at this meeting.
ADJOURNMENT OF REGULAR MEETING
Mr. Murphy made a motion to adjourn the regular meeting. Mr. Hebenstreit seconded the motion and all Trustees voted “Aye”.
Respectfully submitted, Carla Lankster, District Clerk
Operations Report December 2023
Water
IEPA Cross connection survey/service material survey in process to comply with IEPA regulations. Letter/Questionnaire sent to all water customers with a return date of January 25, 2024. We are hopeful for a favorable response from the customer so we do not have to physically inspect 1200 homes. Most returns show customers have no idea what their supply line material is. We have received 212 forms back currently.
Repairs to Water/Plant Equipment:
Furnace annual inspection/cleaning completed 19-Dec-2023. Found Cracked Heat exchanger on Main unit. Part replacement timeline is 3-month lead time for exchanger. Replacement unit quoted and two of the parties have 5-day lead time for replacement units. Apples to Apples quotes. Looked into alternative temporary methods to heat and they are not feasible. The cost of buying/renting units and supplying them with propane exceeds the replacement cost of unit.
Beloman $22,570.00
GRP $24,437.00
Ernst $22,337.00
Sewer
We changed out 4 Grinder pumps in the month. Some callout repairs were minor and completed on location. Total of 12 pumps repaired and/or rebuilt in house. Total pump changes for the year were 111. Past 4 year average has been 144
No word from EPA on fine or litigations dates for Lagoon.
We performed 152 Locates for excavations in the district in December (Julie Calls)
Unfinished business
Email sent to Angie Webster (HOA Manager) informing her we intend to bill Association for portion of By-Pass on Sept 28th. Invoice sent via USPS 6-December-2023
Raw water metering is awaiting contractor response
Software 2 more bids available to view. Reps were not interested in attending meeting.
Cross connection survey (See Above)
Class A testing-Joe and Chris tested and scored 68%. Re-test will be February
Water Plant lift station part is ordered. Temporary jumper put in place to keep lift station operating in mean time. Awaiting status of electrician lead time to complete repair.