Double meetings in June focused primarily on the 2021 budget, issues with the Circle Park pond project, and bids for Meeker Recreation Center’s roof replacement.
The first meeting, held Tuesday, June 16, began with ERBM’s 2019 audit summary. ColoCPA’s Marlo Coates presented the report, and stated, “the adjustments we had to do were so minimal you could have chosen not to do them.”
Next, the board moved into a work session regarding 2021 budget assumptions and long-term planning. The work session was more of an overview of the numbers, with specifics to come as the board moves through their budget process.
• Budget projections show consistent decreases to ERBM’s fund balance, ranging from $300,000 to $800,000, for the next 10 years. Board President Kent Walter stated, “that continual red is a little scary … I don’t know that we need to address it right now but that’s something we need to take a hard look at.” Director Dan Chinn asked if the decrease was related to a difference in energy money being received, to which Administrative Manager Dondi Glasscock replied, “Absolutely.” Walter stated, “it’s hard to project ahead. If Jordan Cove goes through, most of that goes through Piceance, supposedly … boards have always had challenges but maybe ours is just a little more significant.” Chinn stated, “It can’t get much worse.” Glasscock replied, “It can get worse if companies bail on Piceance and try to sell. If they try to unload it the value will continue to go down.”
• Personnel costs increase by about $100,000 over the next 10 years.
• Operations costs have remained fairly stead and are projected to do so, around $1 million a year. According to Executive Director Sean VonRoenn,“That’s not the place to really look for a cut, a lot of fat has been trimmed.”
• Capital improvement project (CIP) amounts are projected to increase and decrease in alignment with scheduled maintenance projects. VonRoenn stressed, “none of this is set in stone,” projections-wise.
• ERBM’s biggest spending years were 2013, when $1.6 million was spent on projects, 2016, when $1.625 million was spent, and this year, with $1.3 million either spent or budgeted.
• 2020’s budget will decrease the fund balance by $1.1 million, the largest decrease in the past 10 years, followed closely by 2017, when the fund decreased by $1.037 million.
• Looking at personnel costs, the board visited the idea of freezing performance increases for employees. The district would save $30-40K. Right now, the budget has a 3% performance increase budgeted, but not all employees receive the full 3% increase, so actual numbers end up being less. ERBM does not offer other raises such as cost of living adjustments. “We can’t run forever on this budget. We’re going to have to do something, no two ways about it,” Chinn stated. However, he was for keeping performance increases in 2021. “I think you’re dealing with morale right now and you don’t want to affect morale unless you absolutely have to. We’ll have to look at some cuts or benefits or whatever. Right now my thinking is we’ve got money in the bank, this is a good time to use it, and we should use it for personnel.” Other board members agreed.
• The board decided to decrease the amount of partnership commitments by $5,000 to $40,000 after the Meeker Golf Course, which was receiving $20,000 from ERBM, only asked for half that this year.
• The District will be reassessing their cost recovery philosophy and existing fees, “doing due diligence and putting best foot forward … it’s not the lion’s share of total revenue, but it is a thing we have a lot of impact on,” VonRoenn stated.
• ERBM’s investments are doing relatively well. Several will mature this year, $735,000 total, and the board agreed to put the funds into ColoTrust, which yields 0.58% on average.
• The board rounded out the work session with a discussion of future CIP projects. In progress and scheduled for 2021 are Circle Park Phase I and some preliminary work on Phase II.
Out of 58 CIP projects, those at the top of the list for 2021 (after Circle Park) are as follows: IT-Fiber LAN installation and equipment replacement: $300,000; Parking lots asphalt replacement: $175,000; Lap pool resurfacing – $60,000; Inflatable slide – $15,000; Utility vehicle/mower – $20,000; Scrubber – $9,000; Fitness room equipment – $10,000.
Director Travis Mobley proposed postponing the parking lot project for at least another year. Other board members agreed.
The board also took a look at a CIP prioritization exercise. According to the document, the top three priorities are: Expand Recreation Center with gymnasium/multi-use/gymnastics space (est. $1.7 million); Improve in-river recreation features in town (tubing, kayaking, etc.) from 3rd St. to 10th St. (est. $300,000); Expand Recreation Center fitness space (est. $1 million)
A 2012 Master Plan survey put improvements and renovation/maintenance of existing park facilities at the top of the list (65%), followed very closely by expansion of the recreation center (64%).
Director Walter stated, “as far as looking at some of these other things that we got from expanding the recreation fitness center, perhaps we’re a little early in the game when we’re looking at Phase II of Circle Park. If anything, ‘improve river recreation features’ kind of fits with Circle Park more than anything else. I don’t know that we want to get too far ahead of that.”
Director Chinn stated improvement of the facility itself should be prioritized, and that maintenance projects or replacement could wait if something was still in working order. “I do think even though things are looking gloomy we should look down the road a little bit, put this facility first. In terms of bringing people to the community, this is what brought me here, this facility.”
Director John Strate stated he didn’t want to create an expansion plan that won’t be followed through on, and Chinn stated anything proposed would need to be modest, but that, “this facility is crucial to the community.”
Walter stated postponing maintenance projects would just be “kicking the can down the road.” “To make assumptions of what’s being presented here, with nothing extra if we look at our trajectory, we don’t have room for a $1.7 million addition to the rec center and the personnel costs to go with that. We still need to complete what we started at Circle Park.”
General consensus was for a feasibility study/site plan to be postponed for the facility itself. The board did decide to add the purchase of new fitness room flooring to the list of 2021 CIP projects.
Bids for the roof replacement project had not been assessed by SGM in time for the June 16 meeting.
Finally, the board agreed to go in on a potential joint application with other recreation districts for DOLA’s coronavirus relief fund.
JUNE 25 MEETING
The June 25 meeting began with a discussion between board members and Circle Park pond contractor Travis Adams of TDA Construction. According to Adams, the Town of Meeker will not allow him to use the bridge during pond construction. “If I’m not allowed to use that bridge it’s going to decrease efficiency a lot.”
Board president Kent Walter stated he understood the town had given permission to use the bridge if Adams signed a no-fault clause. “They did give you an alternative.”
“Yes, but I have no idea what that would cost,” Adams said. “I didn’t put that money in the bid to address that.”
Walter continued, “the board went out of our way to create a haul road … we already incurred additional expenses as a result of that. If you’re coming to the board and you’re asking us to do something, this is truly a matter between you and the town. And the town has already given you an alternative.”
Adams said the road was only built because ERBM and the Meeker Cemetery District already wanted a trail there. “If you guys had not wanted a trail, we would not have done it.”
Walter pointed out the document or contract made no mention of the bridge and stated, “We have a contract with you to complete the project. We’ve provided you adequate access and … you also have an alternative access across that bridge if you so choose to do that. You’d incur additional expenses, but that’s part of doing business.”
Director Travis Mobley asked why Adams couldn’t use the trail that goes up to the cemetery.
“We can use it, we will, but we don’t want two-way truck traffic. We did want to keep that up and down to a minimum. We’ve talked about jake brakes and they [the cemetery board] have concerns about that and we’d be using that a lot more than we’ve told them we were going to.”
According to Adams, his truck and trailer are about 10 tons less than the bridge weight capacity, and he plans on nearly 700 truckloads of material being removed from the site.
VonRoenn said they had already tried to facilitate alternatives on-site with the town and representatives of the project. “What we’ve heard is it’s the responsibility of the contractor with the town to hammer out some agreeable terms on the use if it’s critical to the project.”
Adams said he thought his general liability would already cover what the town was asking for. Board members urged him to verify that, and reiterated that since the town has provided an alternative access option, further discussion should be between Adams and the town’s board of trustees.
After Adams left the meeting, the board discussed helping Adams get on the town’s agenda for a discussion, primarily due to the tight timeline of getting started on the project. “We’re six weeks out and I feel there’s going to need to be some back and forth interaction with TDA to work through some of the agreement terms. I also feel like that is what we have tried to do to this point,” VonRoenn stated.
According to a copy of the Town of Meeker agenda for the July 7 meeting published this week, that has not yet happened.
The board then reviewed concept plans for the river corridor for Phase II of the Circle Park Pond Project to be discussed with the Town board at the July 7 meeting. Director John Strate stated, “I would like to make it as simple as possible with the budget concerns we have and the unknowns.”
Walter stated the board didn’t have to agree on everything all the time, but the concept plans and a final cost on Phase II could be helpful in making decisions.
The board reviewed bids for the roof replacement project budgeted for $250,000. SGM reviewed the received bids and recommended two, one from FCI Constructors with a base bid price of $374,605 and one from Eco Roof and Solar with a base bid amount of $345,173.49. The board went with Eco Roof and Solar.
Eco’s Project Manager Kayleen Kesterson has familial ties to Meeker. “My great-grandmother Dorothy (Kehrberger) worked at the old library for about 10 years and volunteered for the museum. She helped author ‘This is What I Remember’ volumes 1 and 2,” Kesterson stated via email.
At the end of the meeting, Walter stated, “As a reminder, it’s not our job to agree all the time. It’s healthy if we already agree to disagree and I just want to continue to encourage that as a board. Sometimes it feels pretty uncomfortable, but that’s okay, that’s normal. We need to go there and have those discussions because what we’re doing is really important.”
“We’re going to disagree and I think it’s healthy,” Chinn agreed.
By CAITLIN WALKER | [email protected]
