Will County Board Finance Committee met Dec. 7.
Here are the minutes provided by the committee:
I. CALL TO ORDER
II. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG
Mrs. Ogalla led the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.
III. ROLL CALL
Chair Kenneth E. Harris called the meeting to order at 11:42 AM
| Attendee Name | Title | Status | Arrived |
| Kenneth E. Harris | Chair | Present | |
| Margaret Tyson | Vice Chair | Present | |
| Mike Fricilone | Member | Present | |
| Tyler Marcum | Member | Present | |
| Jim Moustis | Member | Present | |
| Judy Ogalla | Member | Present | |
| Frankie Pretzel | Member | Absent | |
| Jacqueline Traynere | Member | Absent | |
| Rachel Ventura | Member | Present |
Also Present: M. Cowan, M. Mueller, N. Palmer and B. Adams.
Present from State's Attorney's Office: M. Tatroe.
IV. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
1. WC Finance Committee - Regular Meeting - Nov 2, 2021 11:00 AM
| RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Mike Fricilone, Member SECONDER: Margaret Tyson, Vice Chair AYES: Harris, Tyson, Fricilone, Marcum, Moustis, Ogalla, Ventura ABSENT: Pretzel, Traynere |
| RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Mike Fricilone, Member SECONDER: Margaret Tyson, Vice Chair AYES: Harris, Tyson, Fricilone, Marcum, Moustis, Ogalla, Ventura ABSENT: Pretzel, Traynere |
1. Monthly Summary - Sales Tax and Cannabis Tax Collections
(Karen Hennessy)
Mr. Harris stated the monthly sales tax and cannabis tax collection report is attached.
2. Establishing All-In Budget for the Renewable Natural Gas Plant at the Prairie View Landfill and Recycling Facility
(Mitch Schaben / Tim Mack)
Mr. Palmer stated I don't know if Mr. Schaben is on, but he told me they were not ready for us to consider the budget. I think it would be appropriate to have the next item, which is Speer Financial's presentation. It is information to guide the County Board's decision making process going forward.
Mr. Schaben stated our goal was to have the presentation from Speer Financial on some financing options as a guide for the bigger topic of discussion, which is Item #2, establishing the all-in budget. We are not prepared to move anything forward today.
| RESULT: POSTPONED [UNANIMOUS]
TO: Will County Finance Committee MOVER: Mike Fricilone, Member SECONDER: Rachel Ventura, Member AYES: Harris, Tyson, Fricilone, Marcum, Moustis, Ogalla, Ventura ABSENT: Pretzel, Traynere |
(Karen Hennessy / Speer Financial)
Ms. Hennessy stated I would like to introduce Mr. Anthony Miceli, of Speer Financial. I asked Mr. Miceli to put together some information about funding options for a small dollar amount, $10 million. I realize that is not small, but small for what we normally go out for bonding. Mr. Miceli put together a presentation and he is prepared to answer questions.
Mr. Miceli stated this presentation is an overview of the borrowing options you have available to you as an Illinois County.
Mr. Moustis stated a lot of folks may not be familiar with Speer. They have been a long-time consultant to the County on financial related issues. I think a further introduction would be helpful for members.
Ms. Hennessy stated the County has partnered with Speer Financial for as long as I have been here. They are our financial advisors. Anytime we issue debt they are present at the transaction. They provide information and support to us, such as the presentation Mr. Miceli will be giving today. We have found them a great source of comfort and assistance when negotiating the debt process. They also review our continuing disclosures to make sure we are publishing the correct information and doing it timely.
Mr. Miceli reviewed the PowerPoint presentation in the agenda packet.
Ms. Hennessy asked are there any limits on doing the direct private placement? We have always been under the impression they were limited to $10 million and that you could not issue other debt for that same calendar year. Is that a correct assumption on my part? If not, can you explain how that would factor into our decision?
Mr. Miceli replied what you are referring to is a bank qualification. If you are a small issuer, which means in a calendar year you are going to issue no more than $10 million in tax exempt debt, you could do a qualified issuance as bank qualified. What that means is the purchaser, the bank, can take an additional tax deduction and they will offer you a lower rate. So that is something you take, if you can, if you really don’t intent to issue more than $10 million in a calendar year, you can designate your bond as bank qualified. It does not stop us from doing a direct placement. It may mean that the bank is going to offer a different indication; maybe their rate is slightly higher, but that is something we factor in and it will not stop the bank from buying the issuance.
Ms. Ventura stated in the example you just gave, the five year or 10-year term, would you be advising us to do the private direct payment for the 1.10%? If that is true, other than the number of years are there other cons to consider?
Mr. Miceli replied the first step will be to determine the term length you need, before we determine the sale. After reviewing the amount you need to borrow and your annual debt service amounts, we came up with the fact the five-year term was where we wanted to go. Then I reached out to banks to get indications, and at that point the lower cost option is to go with private loan. We would begin the process by creating a term sheet and sending it to all these banks and receive their bids. This is a very competitive matter, where we are allowing banks to bid by a certain time and then taking the best bid. You can always bid it to a public sale, if you are not getting the bids you want. I am not necessarily recommending the $10 million and five years is what you should do. That will come down to an internal discussion on what you can afford. If you came to me with that option and these were the indications I got from banks, then I would say let’s try the private loans.
Ms. Ventura asked is it possible we could give you direction to do the private placement, but if you go out for bid and the banks don’t come back with what we thought, then at that time will we have an option to change?
Mr. Miceli replied yes, 100%.
Mr. Fricilone asked do we know for sure that our gap is $10 million at this point, because we have not approved a budget? What do we have in the till from our last bond issuance, including the expenses we paid, what is the total dollar amount we have?
Ms. Hennessy replied I don’t have that available at this time. Those are questions that we will have to address.
Mr. Fricilone stated we need to have that information. If we would ever approve our budget, then we would know what we need, but say it ends up being $9 million. Since we are paying everything with the revenues we receive from the RNG plant, my suggestion is if we need $9 million, we borrow that from our reserve in that first year. If we start seeing we are producing more than we anticipated or we get to a good production rate right away, then we just pay ourselves back. If we see in the first year, we are not producing enough to pay the debt service on what we have now and pay ourselves back within a year or two, then we would go for private placement of $8 or $9 million, whatever we need. Until we know what we have, why would we want to borrow money and be obligated to pay interest on something that we may not need. We already have the money in reserves. Just like we started to do at the Sheriff's Department, where we were going to take money from reserves and pay ourselves back. If this plant starts producing fast enough and we start receiving enough revenue that we can pay our reserves back in the first or second year, we should do it and not worry about bonding any more. But we won't know that until we are in production. We will not need the money to pay off the RNG plant until we get close to the end, because invoices will still be coming in. If it is $53 million, we may have $5 million of invoices sitting out there when the plant starts operating, because the invoices can take a while to get though the system. To me, we need a full spreadsheet to see if we can manage this ourselves, within the first year of operation, to determine what we really need. If we need $7 or $8 million, how fast can we pay it back? If it takes us five or six years, then we will need to go out for a private placement. But if we are producing enough that we can pay ourselves back in a year, there is no reason for us to go out. I would rather see us do that then start designating revenue to go somewhere else or pay for something else. As we said from the beginning, our main goal was to pay this off as fast as we can. If we are going to do that it is better that we borrow from our reserves and pay ourselves back and not have to pay any additional interest; I understand we are getting interest on our reserve.
Mr. Moustis asked could Speer Financial do an analysis?
Mr. Fricilone stated that would be great if Speer could do an analysis, based on you getting the information on the gap we think we are going to have. I think everybody running the RNG process and the construction can tell us how the bills are going to come in, when we will be paying our last bills and how much, and how much our gap will be, so we know how much we are going to have to take from reserves. Then when we are operational, and we know the money is going to be coming in, we can put that into the analysis.
Mr. Palmer stated in the attached PowerPoint, the bond proceeds were $48 million and change. The number we were working off, which may change, was $53,626,317.60. It is about $5 million from the number we were working with, but that could change. We are also using money from the RR&E fund, the solid waste fund. Not that it is simple, but it is the total budget, minus the $48 million we have bonded for and what we reasonably think we can take from the solid waste fund; that is the gap. It is probably in the $3 to $5 million range, without somebody extrapolating all of that out.
Mr. Fricilone stated then it makes sense to take that money from reserves.
Ms. Hennessy stated I want to clarify a point Mr. Palmer made. The RR&E funds have already been used; they were used to cover debt service during the construction phase of the facility. So, there are no more RR&E funds available. We took almost $3 million and put it aside to pay debt service in FY2021 and FY2022, because the facility will not be operational until the end of the year. If there is a $5 million gap, we will need to either use reserves or fund it through debt, whether it be by direct placement or public sale. I don't want anyone to think there is more RR&E money available, they gave their share.
Mr. Palmer stated I agree with Ms. Hennessy and that is why I said we must determine that. At the end of the day, the money that RR&E contributed is to the cost and the total cost is whatever it is, whether it is $50 million or $53 million or more. You are right, I think there were people who thought there was a much deeper pot of money there and it is not. That is the reason we are having this discussion. The number we were considering for a max budget, we had not identified all the funding to pay for all of that, so that is why we are trying to get it all funded, one way or the other so that we can pay all the bills. You are saying the RR&E has no more money to give, but they have paid $3 million for the project. So, if we say the total cost of the project is $53 million, then that means it is $50 million, if that number holds, that means our gap is only $2 million, but I think it is probably more than that. We will see.
Mr. Miceli continued to review the PowerPoint presentation in the agenda packet.
Mr. Harris stated this was an overview of the different financing options we are looking at and exploring to give the Committee an overview of what we have been doing and what has been going on with the financing of the project. If this should come up later, we will have had an overview of the different options available. There is nothing to vote on, this was just the overview of what is going to go into the budget.
Mr. Harris thanked Mr. Miceli and Ms. Hennessy for putting this together.
VI. OTHER OLD BUSINESS
VII. NEW BUSINESS
1. Appropriating Award Funds in Coroner's FY22 Budget
(Laurie Summers)
Ms. Howard stated we included this in the FY2022 budget. It was added as part of the budget changes in November. These funds have already been appropriated into the FY2022 budget.
Mrs. Adams stated if we need to confirm that, we should at least make a motion to move this forward and before we set the County Board agenda on Thursday, we can confirm that we do not need this Resolution.
| RESULT: MOVED FORWARD [UNANIMOUS]
TO: Will County Board MOVER: Mike Fricilone, Member SECONDER: Margaret Tyson, Vice Chair AYES: Harris, Tyson, Fricilone, Marcum, Moustis, Ogalla, Ventura ABSENT: Pretzel, Traynere |
(Kristi McNichol)
| RESULT: MOVED FORWARD [UNANIMOUS]
TO: Will County Board MOVER: Mike Fricilone, Member SECONDER: Jim Moustis, Member AYES: Harris, Tyson, Fricilone, Marcum, Moustis, Ogalla, Ventura ABSENT: Pretzel, Traynere |
(ReShawn Howard)
Ms. Howard stated this is the first round of budget cleanups. At the end of each fiscal year, we start the budget cleanup process. These are expenses that have already been incurred that are either being reclassified, or monies are being moved around within the department's budget to cover expenses. These have been incurred and they need to pay the invoices for some of the budget codes that don't have enough funds remaining.
Mr. Harris asked could you provide information on the County Board maintenance? I got an inquiry about that transfer.
Ms. Howard replied they are transferring funds to some of the line items where they need additional funds and they do not have enough remaining budget for some invoices that are in process to be paid.
| RESULT: MOVED FORWARD [UNANIMOUS]
TO: Will County Board MOVER: Mike Fricilone, Member SECONDER: Tyler Marcum, Member AYES: Harris, Tyson, Fricilone, Marcum, Moustis, Ogalla, Ventura ABSENT: Pretzel, Traynere |
(Julie Shetina / Jen Alberico)
| RESULT: MOVED FORWARD [UNANIMOUS]
TO: Will County Board MOVER: Mike Fricilone, Member SECONDER: Jim Moustis, Member AYES: Harris, Tyson, Fricilone, Marcum, Moustis, Ogalla, Ventura ABSENT: Pretzel, Traynere |
IX. PUBLIC COMMENT
Mrs. Adams announced there were no public comments.
X. ANNOUNCEMENTS/REPORTS BY CHAIR
Mr. Harris stated I want to say to everyone, thank you. This is my last Finance Committee meeting. Effective December 31st I will be stepping down from County Board and assuming the duties of the DuPage Township Assessor. I would first like to thank God for blessing me and allowing me to serve. I want to thank my family for allowing me to serve and the voters of District #4 in Bolingbrook. I want to thank my fellow County Board Members, past, present and in the future. I heard Mr. Brooks say one time, "it is a job of a lifetime, but not a job for a lifetime". That is what this job is all about. You guys have definitely had an impact on me and my family. My son recently told me it was fun watching me transform into a politician; I prefer Elected Official. We have grown as a County and as Board Members from when I started nine years ago. I have seen a lot in Will County, and I like what we have accomplished, and I like the way we have worked together. We don't always see eye-to-eye, but like I mentioned, we are all trying to do the same thing that is in the best interest of the County. To the County Board staff, you guys have been remarkable. When people ask me if they can do this job, I say "yes, no problem", because I know what we have in place with the County Board staff, the County departments and our Countywide Elected Officials. I would like to thank the media also, the print, radio, and news media and definitely the social media. You can learn from them, and you must take the good with the bad. There is a picture that pops up on my Facebook every year and it is a picture of Mr. Gould and Mr. Joe Babich when I first came on the Board. At that time, we had a 13-13 tie with Board Members. The one thing about the Forest Preserve is there is no tie breaker. I got a picture of them sitting at the podium, just working things out. We voted and I learned a lot from that picture. When it pops up, I think about that time when I came on the Board and how we had to work together. There was no tie breaker. You had to come up with a compromise or you were just going to have a stalemate. We worked it out with one guy taking it for one year and the other guy for the next year. To my class of 2012, Mrs. Ogalla, Mr. Balich, we are still here. We came on the Board together. There were others, but we are still here, at least they will finish out the term. Once again, thank you guys. I think you are in good hands, and I think we got some good things coming forward. Again, just thank you.
Ms. Tyson stated Ken thank you for allowing me to be your Vice-Chair. It was a pleasure, and it was an honor and I know you are going to do well as the Assessor of Bolingbrook.
Ms. Ventura stated I was going to say thank you for being an excellent Chair. When I first got elected, before I was sworn in, I was at an event and Mr. Harris sat down next to me and wanted to know what committees I was going to be on. I said I was interested in Finance and it has continued from there. Thank you for allowing me to be on Finance the last three years with you; it has been a pleasure.
XI. EXECUTIVE SESSION
XII. ADJOURNMENT
1. Motion to Adjourn at 12:33 PM
| RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Mike Fricilone, Member SECONDER: Rachel Ventura, Member AYES: Harris, Tyson, Fricilone, Marcum, Moustis, Ogalla, Ventura ABSENT: Pretzel, Traynere |
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