PUBLIC WATER DISTRICT #13
Minutes of the April 17, 2007
Regular Session of the Board of Trustees

The Board of Directors of Public Water District #13, Jefferson County Missouri met in regular session at 1:00 p.m. on April 17, 2007 at the Lake Tishomingo Community Center, Hillsboro, Missouri.
Roll Call of Directors:
The following Directors being present or absent as indicated:
	Name	Present/Absent
	Lou Harting	Absent
	Rich Hirsch	Present
	Larry Kimmel	Present
	Henry Brym	Present
	Marilyn Meyer	Present

Also in attendance was District attorney Floyd Norrick.
 
Motion was made by Rich Hirsch and seconded by Henry Brym to accept the Agenda. On voice vote, all Directors were in favor of accepting the Agenda.

The Minutes of the March 20, 2007 regular session meeting were distributed to the Directors before the meeting. 

Motion was made by Henry Brym to approve the March 20, 2007 Minutes as written. Second was by Larry Kimmel. On voice vote, the Minutes were approved.

Treasurer’s Report:
There was no treasurer’s report.

Old Business
•	Median Household Income (MHI) survey results
The results of the Median Household Income (MHI) survey were received from Dennis Siders of the Midwest Assistance Program. Dennis received the mailed surveys and calculated the results of the survey. 

The first survey form was mailed on 4/10/2006. The results were reported on 4/09/2007, so the survey was conducted over a period of one year.

There were 153 respondents out of 262 homeowners in the Lake Tishomingo, Lake BonoDel, and Tishomingo Forest subdivisions. Some homeowners were sent multiple copies of the survey in an attempt to get them to respond.
MHIs ranged from $5,845 to $593,800. 

The target MHI was $39,400. Our survey resulted in an MHI of $42,575. We need another 20 respondents below $39,400 to reach the target. MHI for Jefferson county is $46,300, so conducting the survey was worthwhile, since our MHI is $3,725 below the MHI for Jefferson county. The MHI is important because 2% of the MHI serves as a guide for the yearly user fee. The Board thanked everyone that participated in the survey.

•	USDA-RD funding discussion
Donna Martin (USDA-RD) presented the Board with documents to sign to set aside a loan amount of $2,243,000. This money is just being set aside for us. Until we sign the contract after the project is bid, we are not committed to the loan and we can back out.  

Donna put together a feasibility document based on the PER and what funding sources she believed would be available. [The summary pages of that document are included at the end of these Minutes.]

Donna indicated that MoDNR was likely to once again offer DNR 40% grants. If the grants become available, they will be limited to $2M. Donna believed that using the “40% criteria,” we could get a $1,650,200 grant. Based on cost estimates in Brunjes’ PER we are still short by about $90,000. Donna said she hoped we could plead our case to local county representatives and secure the $90,000 from them. This may or may not require an income survey. The $90,000 shortfall may go down or up with our new engineer.

Donna recommended NOT hiring a Grant Administrator (GA). She has talked to GAs and they have not been successful in securing grants for sewer projects she has been involved with. Also, DNR does not allow paying a GA from DNR funds. 

Various members of the Board indicated to Donna that a user fee of $71 - $75 per month would be a hard sell to the homeowners of our District. Donna said that it would be difficult to set a user fee much below that because there is so little grant money available. To be eligible for DNR grant money the yearly user fee should be no lower than 2% of our MHI ($42,575). Right now the user fee is calculated to be $75 per month for 262 users, but it is still too early in the project to have much confidence in that number. 

If we were to privately finance this project at 5% for 20 yrs, the cost would be about $93 per month per user. A private company might save a little because they would not be concerned with prevailing wage rate, but they are not eligible for grant money, so Donna believes we could not get someone to come in here, build our sewer and beat her price. 

It is not likely that we could sell the bond ourselves since we have no history and could not get a good bond rating. We therefore need the USDA-RD. 

UDSA-RD funds the interest for the first two years (before the District has revenue coming in). Hopefully the construction will take a year or less. 

The cost of $18,000 per person for sewers would probably not be enough to buy everyone a new $14,000 septic system when you take into account bank borrowing rates. And we are getting grants to put in a sewer, but would not get grants to put in individual septic tanks.

There was a discussion of charging a tap-on fee to help lower the user fee. If we hire a bookkeeper we must alert USDA-RD as to who our bookkeeper is. We will need a home land security emergency response plan.

Resolution 2007-04-17-01: The District will comply with various requirements to obtain financial assistance from the United States of America, acting through the United States Department of Agriculture, Rural Development. Motion made by Rich Hirsch, seconded by Marilyn Meyer, and passed unanimously.

New Business
•	Installation of Henry Brym as Director of Sub-district 5
Duly elected director Henry Brym was present and sworn in. 

Engineer’s Report:
There was no engineer’s report.

Attorney's Report:
There was no attorney’s report.

Adjournment:
There being no other formal business to come before the Board, a motion to adjourn was made by Marilyn Meyer and seconded by Rich Hirsch at 3:14 p.m., with all Directors in approval.

Respectfully Submitted,

Rich Hirsch
Recording Secretary

Approved this 15th day of May, 2007.

___________________________	_________________________________
Secretary	Chairman

May 15, 2007