Garden City Finances

Anita Weston, Reporter

Rich Civic Times

GARDEN CITY, Utah. January 14, 2016.  A report of the Garden City Financial Report for the fiscal year July 1, 2014, through June 30, 2015, was presented by Tiffany Wahlberg, CPA.  She noted that everything appears to be in good shape and gave a clean audit report. 

She noted that one of the major changes from last year was how retirement funds for employees are to be handled.  The State of Utah has added about four pages of footnotes to explain why there are two levels of retirement funds and how they are to be handled.  Retirement funds are actually a liability because it is a responsibility of the City to provide the needed monies for retirees over time. 

She thanked the City workers for their support and help during the audit process.  She said that the City is doing well and that the annual report is a good report.

Robert Peterson noted that he has been looking into insurance proposals from three different companies.  Two of them have submitted their proposals.  Peterson asked that this item be discussed next month when the third proposal will be available as well.  He is very optimistic that changing the insurance plan with save the City money and the benefits will be better than the current program.

Peterson has written three different policies.  The credit card policy was reviewed and approve by the Council.  The payroll procedure policy was read and approved by the Council. 

The billing policy and procedure was also discussed by the Council.  The City bills for water service are accurately and promptly sent to all users.  The City then also takes timely and reasonable actions to collect any past due amounts. 

However, the public works employees still have to spend a great deal of time red tagging an individual’s water system because he/she doesn’t pay his/her bill.  An individual’s water system is not red tagged until they have been billed several times and contacted with registered mail.  Then, the workers red tag the system.  The individual’s water will be disconnected after being red tagged three times in a year. 

The Council decided that an extra cost should be included in this policy in order to pay for the time the City’s employees are spending trying to collect on past due water bills.  It was determined that the first red tag will not carry a fine.  However, the second red tag will cost the individual $50, and the third red tag will cost $100.  If the individual doesn’t pay at that point, the water is disconnected.  The shut off is $150 and the turn on fee is also $150.  The policy was approved with the fine costs included.

The City has been working toward building a community recreation center.  They have the plans available so that people can see what the center will look like on the City’s web site.  The decision was made to approve and hire a bond council for the recreation center so that the council can get the information out to the citizens prior to voting on a bond for monies to build this facility.  The motion was made to hire John Crandall’s firm for $5,000 to get things moving toward getting the recreation center project moving forward.