MINUTES OF THE DECEMBER 05, 2007 EMERGENCY MEETING

FOR THE MATLACHA/PINE ISLAND FIRE CONTROL DISTRICT

 

Call to Order:  The meeting was called to order at 1 p.m.

Roll Call:  Commissioners Cox, Cole, Elder, Cammick and Peckinpaugh were present. 

Deputy Chief Marzella and Administrative Assistant Richter were present.

 

Business:  Discuss and enact actions regarding the financial and banking matters of the district.

 

Commissioner Elder: The meeting has been called at the recommendation of Jeff Tuscan, Tuscan & Co.  I’m going to ask because this is an emergency meeting and we’ve called it as such without much advance notice so that the public could be here.  I’ve asked administrative assistant to do 2 things:  (1) any motions that are made she will be writing them, so speak clearly and slowly so she can read them back for the record.  (2) the minutes as opposed to normal where the minutes are done in abbreviated fashion she will be transcribing the minutes verbatim so that the public can see and read every word that was spoken.  That’s all in agreement with the board I assume.  Board agrees.  With that our Treasurer has been involved we will let Mr. Cammick have the floor.

 

Commissioner Cammick:  Before I get started I’m going to need, before I’m done the exact figures we have in our accounts, which you may have and how they’re separated into Impact Fees and all those things.  You people pretty much know the history of how this started, so the meeting that I was at via phone the other day, was yesterday, pretty much described what they planned on some of the ideas that they were going to use.  After going through that meeting it was extremely professional, it’s amazing what a good job they came up with, as far as ideas and things like that.  Commissioners questioned who he was referring to.  Commissioner Cammick:  BlackRock which was hired by the state to deal with this situation.  So to give you the facts; the fund used to have about $27 billion in it now it has about $14 billion because of all the people pulling money out.  Out of that $14 million, 8% is under stress and 6% is in default status; now default just means that they’re not paying their interest, doesn’t mean that you are going to loose all your money.  The minute a bond doesn’t pay their interest the value of it goes down, and that was driving the value down, these were driving the value down in the fund that is why people got afraid.  86% is considered AAA, you can’t get any safer investments than those unless they were quick matured.  Average maturity, the furthest they can go out is 13 months, so this money here is all going to mature by 12/07/07 and 2/2008 that would all turn over.  That’s the same with this except when you have a defaulted bond it may have to take longer to reorganize so technically some of these bonds could go 1, 2 or 3 years by the time you get all your money back.  So with those facts what the SBA did was say they wanted to set up two accounts A shares and B shares, so your are going to have shares.  So they say the B shares are going to hold all the under stress and defaulted bonds you cannot sell B shares, you can’t sell them; 14%, if you had a $1 million in there $140,000 of your money ends up in B shares.  You’re not going to be able to sell until they okay it at a later date probably not for a year at least.  Commissioner Elder:  Before you go any farther with that did that come from the commentary from Bloomberg?  Commissioner Cammick: No.  Commissioner Elder: Because I spoke with Jeff Tuscan yesterday evening about 5:30 and he had spoken with someone he said she, at the SBA, and that the $2 million was the magic number that if you are under $2 million a 100%.  Commissioner Cammick: This is a different thing.  This here is just B shares.  Commissioner Elder: No I understand but you said if you have a million dollars, Jeff Tuscan said that’s not the case, said the case is if you’re under $2 million you can have all your money.  Commissioner Cammick: You’re right but this is, you can’t have all your money.  Commissioner Elder:  Yes.  Commissioner Cammick:  For the B shares.  Commissioner Elder:  Jeff Tuscan disagrees with you by his conversation with the SBA.  Commissioner Cox:  You are saying that we have no money that has been put into the B share category.  Commissioner Elder:  Right.  Commissioner Cammick:   I haven’t heard that and they didn’t mention that yesterday they just said you can’t.  But let’s go under the assumption, my assumption would be the worse possible scenario.  Commissioners reply okay.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  There’s an article, there was a current article in the paper $2 million.  Commissioner Elder: It was an interpretation from Bloomberg, if you read where that came from.  Commissioner Cammick:  No this here is from my notes yesterday.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  It makes no reference to that.  Commissioner Cammick:  We were talking to BlackRock, SBA and everybody there.  So this is the A shares, A shares is going to have the 86% this is where you can pull your 15% or your $2 mil out of, whichever is greater.  So that is where we can get our money so my assumption was that if you had $1 million in there $140,000 stays in there and for us you can take the whole balance out the other $860,000 you can keep.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  Do we have any knowledge as to if we have any money in B?  Commissioner Cammick:  Everyone has money in B.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh: Everybody does.  Commissioner Cammick:  They have $14 billion they took all the bad bonds and put them in B and they put all the good ones in A, you have.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:   But the bad ones are worth about what 14%.  Commissioner Cammick:

So they separated the shares you own B shares but you can’t get your money out of them.  Your A shares you can get out anytime, we can call the SBA after this and get this but this is the worse scenario, and this is the way I got it from when we talked yesterday.  So the A shares is where you are taking your money out of.  Now if you take more than your allotted amount out then that’s where you pay the 2% penalty for taking it out.  But in order to keep people happy and keep people putting money into here they have set it up the two side’s new money and old money.  So that us and everyone else doesn’t mind putting our money in this A account with all the AAA bonds, any new money there is never a fee to get it out.  So they’re going to keep track of our money in this A account between new money and old money.  So if we had some of these people that have $10 million in here if they wanted that whole thing out they have to pay all those fees, so their not going to want to put money in there.  Commissioner Cole:  What fees are those?  Commissioner Cammick:   2% penalty.  Commissioner Cole:  2% over $2 million or 15%.  Commissioner Cox:  Over your total investment you’re A value.  Commissioner Cammick:  Right they want to keep money in here so technically they could still be putting money in A shares pulling that out at anytime they want without a fee and then just take money out of B shares whenever they are allowed without a fee if they have enough.  Commissioner Elder:  But in our case we’re under the $2 million and so assuming your scenario is right we could take 86% of our money out tomorrow if they open it up.  Commissioner Cammick:  Correct.  Commissioner Elder:  Because that’s well under the $2 million.  Commissioner Cammick:  So we would get about $1.3 million in our hand and then we would end up with B shares account and let’s say if you wanted to you could turn right around the next day and put it right back in now your in the new money.  Now anytime you want you can pull this back out.  So that’s going to be some possibility for us to look at a %.  Commissioner Cox:  From what I’m hearing there seems to be Bob’s interpretation so we need to get some updated information about the status of our total amount of money which is less than $2 million.  Commissioner Elder:  Jeff Tuscans conversation and he asked specifically he told me he asked the question the answer was if you’re under $2 million you can take all of your money; that you don’t fall into the 86%/14%.  Commissioner Cammick:  It doesn’t matter to us because the worse is what I just said if that’s not it then that means we get the whole $1.5 and technically we can say we don’t have B’s why don’t we put back the $300,000 that was in B’s and we’ll stick that back into new.  So you could do all kinds of things.  Commissioner Cox:

 I think either way we’re in better shape than probably a lot of others.  Commissioner Cammick:  Yeah because we’re so small.  They’ve set up so you can borrow off your money if you don’t want to take it out early, doesn’t pertain to us because we’re not big enough holders.   Commissioner Cox:  And they’ve drawn down from how many billion into $14 million?  Commissioner Cammick:   $27 billion.  Commissioner Cox:   That is just amazing you can see if how they continued on they would be bankrupt.  Commissioner Cammick:  The safest part of this whole deal is with SBA is they have the power to stop, banks don’t have that power they can’t just say we aren’t going to start paying you we are going to stop it stop the run.  They stopped the run on this and this is a brilliant idea force people to leave their money in the bad one and make everyone feel really really comfortable about this.  This isn’t going to hurt because most people can withstand leaving 14% of their money in there plus they didn’t have any choice.  That’s why they hired those guys and that’s a good idea. So they are going to hold this to maturity let them get back a big % net asset value and any interest it earns hopefully it makes up for the portion of the lose if there is any which I’m sure there will be.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  A couple things am I correct that the under stress bonds are the bonds that got down graded from a C to a D-; which devaluated them by $700 million that started this snowball.  Commissioner Cammick:  I would say the default ones were first the default were obviously under stress before they were defaults so I would say this is probably what started your right.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  Is this the sub prime money, mortgage money that they bought.  But the thing that really disturbs me that was brought up in the articles from today and yesterday and I was curious as to what Jeff’s opinion would be today because he told the chief and the chief told me Thursday that don’t worry our money is protected by the State of Florida and I said well that’s good that’s just nothing more than you’s and me’s.  Commissioner Cox:  Lets take it from the left pocket and put it in the right pocket.  Commissioner Cammick:  But it isn’t.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  But these articles are saying now that the State of Florida is not going to guarantee these funds.  Commissioner Cammick:  It is just like you and I investing in bonds.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:   I understand that but if your money is with the bank at least there’s some federal guarantee there, quote quote for a 100 grand.  Commissioner Cammick:   And you can’t get it back for up to 18 months.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  But the comment was don’t worry your money it’s totally protected and now we are getting this but it clears it up that if your under $2 million you can get your money without any question per say.  Commissioner Cammick:  But that’s not the state doing anything special that’s just the system they set up for people to get there money.  I don’t think they should have these accounts guaranteed by the government because you shouldn’t put your money in these types of things if you’re not willing to take a little bit of risk.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  The old adage is don’t put all your eggs in one basket.  Commissioner Elder:  That is now Jeff Tuscan’s recommendation he was in a meeting I just text messaged him to see if he was available by telephone.  His recommendation was to come out of the SBA and not to put all your money into Fifth Third, spread the money around.  Commissioner Cox:   Absolutely.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  We have 5 accounts we could do 5 different accounts.  Commissioner Elder:  Or CD’s.  Commissioner Cox:  Bob is there any fore thought from what I’m starting to understand that we would be more secure with some of the money in the new A bond issue that the SBA is offering?  Commissioner Elder:  Here’s the thing that we have to decide.  Commissioner Cammick:  You’d have to have the information pertaining to what the new thing is.  Commissioner Elder:  Here’s what we have to decide about the SBA, (1) is what they did, they locked up the plan I would have more confidence in them if they had gone straight to this in the beginning, but by saying no money they could have potentially held pay checks from how many different agencies all over the state for that matter they may have done that at a number of agencies.  Do we know of anything any scuttle butt, did anyone not get their pay checks?  Linda:  I don’t know.  Commissioner Cammick:  The new system is set up now for that.  Commissioner Elder:  I understand John but what they did was extremely callous.  They could have said just as easily said you can have 20% of your money but no more.  Commissioner Cox:  Lets back up one more step because I’m clueless on this I’m learning and I want to hear all of it, but take me back to the SBA loan.  This is not the small business association is this just our state or are there other states involved.  Commissioner Cammick:   Our state.  Commissioner Cox:  And this is called state what?  Linda:   Board of Administration.  Commissioner Cox:  State Board of Administration and it seems to me and correct me or help me if I’m not correct it seems to me about the most popular place for state agents to put their pension funds and such as that.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  Well it’s because of their interest rate.  Commissioner Cammick:  And they kind of make you they set the criteria so that’s the most attractive thing to do.  Commissioner Cox:   I just have to get it straight in my mind.  Linda:   The board voted to put the money in there because the interest rate was better than what we could get at a bank at the time they opened up those accounts.  Commissioner Cox:  Okay alright.  Linda:  And that’s why they went with the State Board of Administration.  Commissioner Elder:  I asked Linda to copy the Investment part of our guidelines and if I could take you to the.

Commissioner Cammick:  You want me just to finish this and then we can do it?

Commissioner Elder:  Sure.  Commissioner Cammick:  I look at it a little differently than Bob, having been in the security business the reaction in what these people came up to do was brilliant and when you’re in a run they had to take some time to figure out what to do and they didn’t want to stop the second the run started so I think I don’t have a problem with what they did maybe the fact that how they invested it but when they wanted to fix it and we do want to remember that they have set up a few other things.  They’ve set it up so you can borrow from other entities, like banks they are setting up deals with.  So if this ever happened again the people that need their money and don’t want to pay the 2% they can borrow off the contract.  Kind of like we could borrow a $1 million off our $2 million in there as an equity and it would be extremely low interest rates because they would be backed up by cash.  Most all these are going to mature in 6 months the new fund is going to be more like a money market than it is now so it’s not going to pay as much; you’re going to have shorter term even though 13 months isn’t very long it’s going to be shorter than that.  That’s going to be for the new and old money in this account, going to earn money market rates.  Benefit smaller share holders which it did because the way they set it up to get money out.  They figure the best they are going to do is get 60% of B back but they will know more by March.  Commissioner Cole:  Get 60% of their original $27 million.  Commissioner Cox:   In the amount of money in fund B.  Commissioner Cammick:  But they will know that by March because there are going to be a lot of.  Commissioner Elder:  Which is going to amount to about a 3% loss of the total fund approximately.  Commissioner Cammick:   That is it and I have some ideas but when it comes time for ideas and what to do I will talk about that afterwards.  Commissioner Elder:  Have you got your copy of the Investment portion of our guidelines?  If you take a moment to go to (E) Prudence.  Commissioner Cammick:  This fund doesn’t have what we have in Fifth Third.  Linda:  It’s only talking about the SBA.  Commissioner Cammick:  When you’re investing money you have to know the total amount of what you have.  Linda:  My understanding was the meeting was for the SBA Fund.  Commissioner Cammick:  But I wouldn’t invest money without knowing where other things are so I would just like to know how much we have with Fifth Third.  Linda:

There is approximately $800,000.  I can go pull the information.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  Some of ad valorem has already gone into Fifth Third, correct.  Commissioner Elder:  And it’s going to continue to go in there.  Commissioner Cammick:  No I just wanted to know, it makes a big difference on weather how much we may or may not leave in the SBA or what we might do with other banks when we decide we’ve almost got $1 million in this account that’s why I just wanted to know.  Commissioner Elder:  Let’s get through and decide how we go about deciding.  Linda:

Mr. Peckinpaugh had asked a question about the last tax money.  The last $704,000 that we had thought went into SBA did not go into the SBA it went into Fifth Third that’s why Fifth Third is higher.  Commissioner Elder:  But Fifth Third is just as a point of reference Fifth Third is our depository is our daily bank.  So when we get tax money in it’s going to go into Fifth Third.  Linda:  From now on yes.  Commissioner Elder:

Now from there once there get’s to be a balance in Fifth Third if we choose to make an investment or transfer or buy CD’s or whatever we decide to do it will come out of that account and that will be our general account that we operate from and we’ll decide, Linda and the Chief will decide how much to leave in there to operate with.  That’s what Jeff Tuscans comments were; don’t trade one situation for another and go right back into one bank.  We’re in some what of unexplored territory here.  So anyway if we can get back to this Prudence.  Commissioner Cammick:  Did we pay off the equity line?  Linda:  Not yet I was waiting for direction from the board today.  Commissioner Cammick:  I had mentioned yesterday that that would be a good thing for us to do.  Linda:  All I have to do is call Jim Mitchell and tell him we are going to do that.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:

What did we borrow?  Linda:  $150,000.  Commissioner Cammick:  So we have $150,000 out that we are paying interest on so we want to quit that.  Commissioner Elder:

So you want to read through the Prudence under E:  The standard of prudence to be applied by the Investment Officer shall be the “Prudent Person” rule, which states:

“investments shall be made with judgment and care, under circumstances then prevailing, which persons of prudence, discretion and intelligence exercise in the management of their own affairs, not for speculation, but for investment, considering the probable safety of their capital, as well as the probable income derived.”  So our decision needs to be not just on how much income we made potentially we get from where ever we put our money; but the security of where that money is so that we don’t potentially loose it.  Because we did such a laborious project of selecting a bank, banking relationship when we ended with Fifth Third I did a little research and talked to Jeff Tuscan and we do not there is no need for the district a requirement for the district to go out and bid banking services.  We could authorize the chief to place CD investments that will tie them out over time and I know we can, now that Lodge Construction is on it’s way, have you seen a cash flow Linda have they done one, they will do one if we ask them to do it and they will tell us a projection of month by month, what kind of money we should have on hand to expect to pay them with, we know what the districts monthly capital outlays are by history and payroll so my recommendation at this point would be to develop that so we know as our money comes in when are we going to need it.  The tax monies going to come in that we are not going to need for a period of time; but when will we need it in this upcoming year.  The discussion I had with Jeff Tuscan he’s not text messaging me back so I assume he’s not available.  That we do 2 things (1) we not put the money all in one location, he recommended against Bank of America and against Wachovia because they are so heavily into the mortgage paper.  The newest bank on the block is probably the best bank but it must be a Government Depository.  Southwest Capital is the newest bank and they are not yet although.  Commissioner Cammick:  Two more weeks they said.  Commissioner Elder:  Their application is in.  The next newer one other than that local to us is Florida Gulf Bank which just put the branch in over on Sandoval on Veterans.  I spoke with the CEO this morning they’ve been in business for 7 years they have not issued any speculative loans they’re loan paper for equity lines which is the worst to have accounts for about 10% of their total loan paper that’s out there.  Because their young their not in the mortgage market as heavy and the mortgage market is the problem.  Is that not correct Mr. Cammick that’s where this is coming from the loses.

Commissioner Cammick:  A lot of these were prime mortgages.  Commissioner Elder:

Right mortgages.  Commissioner Cammick:  The people borrowing the money and the collateral was good stuff it wasn’t sub par the values went down and these banks that we are talking about it’s not necessarily where they have a lot of their money it’s where did they have the money if we are putting our money in a bank for a certificate of deposit in a certified qualified public depository what do they have that they are going to collateralize it with, if they collateralize with crappy mortgages we don’t want it and if they collateralize it with U.S. Treasuries which they wouldn’t cause it wouldn’t make any money, then obviously you couldn’t be any safer than that.  Commissioner Elder:  That’s the other thing the Florida, I’m glad you said that cause the Florida Gulf Bank said they have zero in sub prime.  They haven’t issued any sub prime at all.  So whether we decide to leave monies in the SBA, I believe we have to evaluate while your presentation was great and I agree that BlackRock has done a good job putting together a plan.  Commissioner Cammick:  They’re the new managers by the way for the next 6 months I think.  Commissioner Elder:  Since this has all happened I remember that bumper sticker that says I love my country but I fear my government.  And that the State of Florida in taking the action that they took if we as a district had not taken out roughly $1.5 million line of credit which we may well not have done if we weren’t going forward with Station 3 our money would have been tied up at this time the particular cycle would have been tied up in the SBA and we potentially might not of made payroll.  And if that would of happened we would have had real problems.  I think in that sense what the legislature did, Mr. Christ and the Legislature did was wrong, callous I don’t disagree that they should have done something to stave off what was happening but the way they did it I think was wrong.  Commissioner Cox:  I’d like to add to that and you made a quote and I would like to quote someone too I’d like to quote Will ?? (not audio able)  I am more concerned about the return of my investment than I am the return on my investment.  And if we go down this list guys and it boils down to U.S. Government Treasury Bonds because we are not living off the interest that we are earning we’re living off the dollars we are getting from our public. I want to go on record as being said I’m more concerned about the safety than I am the investment.  Commissioner Cammick:  It’s easy to do and we have money that we can put away for a decent length of time not much over a year.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  I have made a list that would qualify 5 institutions that maybe we could look into unless we have to make decisions today other than withdrawing from the SBA, I think that is one thing we should do.  (1) Riverside (2) SunTrust (3) Regions – which is the new kid on the block too (4) Florida Gulf (5) Suncoast Credit Union.  Commissioner Elder:  The in the conversation Riverside maybe a problem because they made a very large pitch and wrote a lot of equity lines.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  I’m just throwing names out.  Commissioner Elder:  Riverside is local and they got aggressive into the Real Estate market when the market was going up and wrote a lot of equity lines and as I understand it those people are on the bottom of the list if foreclosure started.  Commissioner Cox:  We should expect the worst.  Commissioner Elder:  In any event I think the bank has a disclosure that you can look at where their investments are.  The statistics that Florida Gulf told me this morning those are good now obviously we would look at where their money is and determine well you get some of ours you don’t.  Southwest Capital for example if the were or once they get to be sanctioned as a Qualified Public Depository for government funds they would be an excellent place cause they are not old enough to have any of those bad loans.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  Till they do that we can’t make a move.  Commissioner Elder:  No.  But I also think what Mr. Tuscan said were ever we go we don’t want to stick it all in one place.  So we may want to go to 4 different banks.  Commissioner Cammick:  I did call banks, the chief and I called a couple banks the morning after this to get an idea of collateralized certificates, which is  a certificate of deposit but they are collateralized so they can’t pay as much as most certificates because they have to take high quality investments and put them in another account to back this up so if they have trouble this money isn’t touched it belongs to that CD.  SunTrust didn’t even want to bid because they couldn’t compete, they said if you can get that kind of a rate which was 4.85 and the other bank there was 5 but we can’t do anything with them.  The criteria we used was 3 months to a year no fees to take your money out.  They were dropping like flies but there still were a couple that would possibly go with it.  It would be pretty easy to contact these banks and say this is what we have we want to know what your CDs are so it’s not going to be a process like we went through before which was a real pain.  This here is just a matter of calling banks or sending them a fax.  The other thing is we can make decisions instantly on Treasuries you can put a million dollars in Treasuries and you don’t worry about one thing you just buy 3 month, 6 month up to 9 month Treasuries your rates are going to be a lot lower but it’s guaranteed and if we want to kind of wait till the dust settles a little bit and we not leave hardly anything in SBA or whatever we can pick up some Treasuries pretty easily.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  Only comment I’m going to make for right now is I think our prime interest is protecting our principal and then go out and find out interest rates we can’t make decisions today.  We’ve got to protect the principal and then put the principal here there or where to at least protect it from that stand point and then once it’s there then we can take the time to look into CDs and how much etc.  Because we’ve got to make decisions because you can’t put everything into CDs because it’s not liquid.  We’ve got to keep a lot of this money in a liquid account because we’re going to be drawing on it, we’ve got contracts, payroll etc. so a lot of this money has to be liquid at all times.  Commissioner Cammick:  We have a million that really doesn’t need to be liquid, because we don’t use it.  Commissioner Elder:  Let me pose a question.  Is it at this particular point and time Linda has her marching orders from the chief that as soon as the SBA was open to get everything you could get out of there.  Is it the consensus of the board that we want to stay there, do we want to stay with that marching orders we want to come out of the SBA as far as we can come out?  Commissioner Cox:  I think we should personally.  Commissioner Cole:  T-Bills are a good thing to have from experience over the years, we can get a 3 month T-Bill I think the return today was 3.2% and there isn’t much difference between a 3 month and 10 year the way they are laddered out but my question is of all of these other non T-Bill investments is there really anything safer than the AAA Bonds that are in the A account?  Commissioner Cammick:  They’re all the exact same account, if you put in the bank money market it’s all SBA it’s all the exact same thing the A side.  Commissioner Cole:  Right and so that if we were trying to diversify ourselves we’ve got $800,000 in Fifth Third in whatever vehicles they’re using, if we were to take the money that we really need to have that we know we’re going to need in the next year if we left the sick account and the operating reserve account in the SBA A pool and we took the operating general fund, impact fees and equipment and improvements and put those in T-Bills and laddered them project what we are going to need out of that at 3, 6 and 9 months we would then have our money split between Fifth Third people the safest of the SBA side of it and the T-Bill pool in about equal 3rds, which has the conservative diversification covered.   That’s my knowledge on this.  Commissioner Cammick:  Are you going to finish the question that you’re asking all the way around.  Commissioner Elder:  Yeah.  Commissioner Cole:  My answer would be with my scenario; no we would not pull it all out of the SBA we would pull part of it out.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh: My answer to you Jim is that I don’t disagree with what you’re saying.  Commissioner Cammick:  Well can we finish the question.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  I’m coming to that.  Commissioner Cammick:  Well I know but I’m asking to finish Bob’s question.  Commissioner Elder:  My question of the consensus. Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  It’s both my fear is that come tomorrow there could be continuous runs on this bank and draw it down and they’ll freeze it again.  I’m saying if what John has said.  Commissioner Cammick: There can’t be.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  You can get it all out and then if it comes down and gets that way we can put it back again isn’t that what you said John.  Commissioner Cammick:  Yes so it can’t have a run because.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  We can protect our principal.  Commissioner Cammick:   Ours is fine, but I would like to finish the poll of the others.  Commissioner Elder:  Commissioner Cox you said you would like to come out of the SBA.  Commissioner Cox:  Yes.  Commissioner Elder:  Commissioner Cole you said no you would like to leave part in.  Commissioner Cole:  Right.  Commissioner Elder:  I would like to come 100% out if we can.  Commissioner Cammick:  I would if it was up to me I’d leave sick account in there in A but I have no problem with coming all the way out waiting a week or two or three and put some back into it.  Commissioner Elder:  So you want to leave part of it in as Dr. Cole.  Commissioner Cammick:  Yeah but I don’t have a problem with pulling all out either.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  You have my answer 100%.  Commissioner Elder:  3 of us say we want to come out so does the board agree that’s a consensus or do we need a motion.  Now that we’ve got that I believe if the state had gone directly to this plan as opposed to locking up everybody’s money for a week we might have all been more confident in them.  I would have been more confident in their ability to manage the money but when they said you can’t have any of your money they put services in jeopardy.  Therefore, I agree with Commissioner Cox it’s important to get your money your investment returned to you.  Commissioner Cox:  They have done.  Commissioner Elder:  Now banks don’t have they’re under federal guidelines they don’t have the ability to say no you can’t have your money, if they say no you can’t have your money they close their doors, and the feds come in.  Commissioner Cammick: And you can’t get it for 18 months.  Commissioner Elder:  What I am saying is they cannot do that.  They cannot just shut you down because they don’t want you to run on the bank as the state did.  Commissioner Cammick:  That’s the way you loose your money with banks though that’s why this was such a good thing to be able to do.  Commissioner Cox:  And this is good but they are going to continue to reduce their interest rates to us which is a lose.  Commissioner Cammick:  We’re discussing something that I agreed in pulling it all out and we have another investment at a later date which is always the SBA.  So I don’t need you to explain to me why you’re doing it.

Commissioner Elder:  Okay.  Let’s talk about where we are financially, so we can decide where we put our money.  (1) Dr. Cole as you talked about this money at this time next year we will be into our line of credit, we won’t have this money this time next year because we will have built the building.  So temporarily what’s going to happen is this $1.5 million plus the $700 or $800,000 that’s in Fifth Third is going to grow considerably over the next few months as the tax dollars roll in.  So we are about to be wealthy for a short period of time and then we’re going to spend it as we move forward through the year payroll, operating expenses the building and so on until we either decide we’re going to spend our cash reserves and lean on our credit line as a reserve or do we go ahead and use the credit line and keep part of the cash, as a true cash reserve, we’ve got to decide that later in the year.  So I probably agree with you that it’s probably more important with our cycle that’s facing us that we absolutely secure the funds, that’s more important than getting the best return on our investment because our investments going to be short.  A year from now we will have cashed all these which is where I was thinking, can you get 6 month T-bills?  Commissioners:  Yes 3, 6 a year.   Commissioner Cammick:  Fifth Third might even be able to buy them for us.   Commissioner Elder:  The best scenario that I can see is for to get with Lodge, and maybe Mr. Cammick you might want to do this with Jeff Tuscan or Linda and lay out a monthly budget, a monthly cash flow budget, that Lodge will help you with.  Commissioner Cammick:  Linda already knows what she needs.  Commissioner Elder: Linda already probably knows what the payroll and truck payments and all of that.  Is that already in the budget program?  Is it monthly or is it yearly?  Linda:  It’s yearly.  Commissioner Elder:  So you would have to go through and pull it apart month to month to get the monthly.  Linda:  Because some are annual payments and some are monthly payments so we put it in as a yearly.  Commissioner Elder:  And we’re not talking about a detailed we’re talking about a broad brush we need this much this month and so on, the biggest numbers going to be the Lodge the construction money.  And then we will know when we need the money, and that will tell us how long we invest it for.  So we get it back and whether it’s T-Bills, CD’s a combination of.  Commissioner Cammick:  T-Bills is the simplest, easiest, guaranteed safest thing.  Commissioner Cox:  I’m with you.  Commissioner Cammick:  Tomorrow, then we can worry about banks and interest rates all that stuff and I think if we could get someone could get Jim Mitchell on the line, I bet you they can buy T-Bills for us in their department.  The 800 grand is there the monies going to be in there tomorrow.  Buy a $1 million or $1.5 million worth 30 day or CD’s.  Commissioner Cox:

If you take Dr. Coles thoughts of third, third, third if you bought a third, third, third, 30, 60 and 90 that gives us time to make intelligent decisions and to get with our accountants and find out, it gives us cash in 30 days, 60 days and 90 days taking T-Bills.  Commissioner Cammick:  We don’t have to make any decisions.  Commissioner Cox:  To keep our operating account to a minimum of $100,000 or $200,000 there’s going to be some risk but just look at a simple for us we’re not financial wizards other than Mr. Cammick.  Commissioner Cammick:  But it is easy for us just to keep it simple.  Commissioner Cox:  And it is, keep it simple and let the people that we pay make these decisions and for us to approve it.  Commissioner Elder:  I would like Mr. Cammick to work with them.  Commissioner Cox:  Absolutely, absolutely John is on top of it.  Commissioner Elder:  I don’t think there needs to me a motion because the chief already is in control of the funds.  Commissioner Cammick:  We do need someone to Deputy Chief can tell someone to buy T-Bills if we decide we want to do that.  Commissioner Elder:  Let’s try to frame a motion that authorizes the executive staff to analysis and make those and I’m going to suggest that in the motion that we look at the bank paper and look at the report to see where their investments, where their securities are.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  Should we be successful tomorrow and withdraw 1.9 million it’s going to go into Fifth Third, correct?  Commissioner Cammick:  It’s 1.56 million.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  Or 1.56.  Linda:  My orders were to put it into Fifth Third yes.  Commissioner Cammick:  It automatically goes there.  Commissioner Elder:  Well Tuscan says we shouldn’t leave it there.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  I understand.  We have a meeting next Monday do we not?  Linda:  You have an executive session meeting.  Commissioner Elder:  We have executive session only.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:   Oh it’s executive session okay.  Could we call another emergency meeting after that to further discuss this in the mean time some us will or John or whoever go to several of these banks and find out about their paper.  Commissioner Elder:  My conversation this morning.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  So we can make decisions at that time as to where this monies going to go.  Commissioner Cammick:  I’d put it in T-Bills tomorrow and then we have 30 days, if we put all of it in T-Bills tomorrow or the day we get it out or the next day, then we can run around and do stuff we don’t worry about; because Fifth Third is getting an enormous amount of this money.  Commissioner Cox:  You could put your sick and some of those funds in a 60 or 90 day but the immediate cash the majority of this 30 days give us time to have another meeting.  Commissioner Cammick:  Is it possible for you or someone to give me Jim Mitchell’s number and at least see if he can do it.  Commissioner Elder:  My conversation this morning with John Rincard, who’s the CEO of Fl. Gulf was that he wanted to know what was next he wanted to talk to us and I said you would probably be hearing from Mr. Cammick.  That’s he’s our treasurer and he has been in that industry.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  Well how liquid is T-Bills?   Commissioner Cammick:  Instantly.  If you wanted to take them out the next day you’re going to have market value fluctuation but if you take it in 30 days.  Commissioner Cox:  You have guaranteed return.  Commissioner Cammick:  It’s impossible to loose money in the T-Bill.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  Well I’m not worried about loosing money as I am protecting principal I don’t want to tie it all up.  Commissioner Cammick:  We have $800,000 in Fifth Third.  Commissioner Cammick:  Plus more coming in.  Commissioner Cammick:  We could do it in a couple of weeks, I can have all the information, Linda and I from all the banks before our next meeting on the 24th.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  We have another meeting after the 10th which is a workshop before the board meeting.  Commissioner Elder:  I think the question is does the board want to be involved in all these detail decisions or does the board want to let Mr. Cammick work with the chief and executive staff to make.  Commissioner Cox:  That’s my inclination.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  makes a motion that if we are successful in withdrawing money from SBA tomorrow that they be deposited into Fifth Third and then converted to T-Bills asap and within the next 30 days with Mr. Cammick research, the board along with staff can make decisions as a board and with staff on the disbursements of the T-Bills with Commissioner Cox to second.  Commissioner Elder:  Providing this all moves forward by our December meeting could we have a plan.  Linda could you put together a cash flow by then, I know it’s going to hinge on Lodge?  A monthly cash flow.  Linda:  I can do my portion and then we can ask Lodge.  Commissioner Elder:  We are looking for the 1st of July gives us a 6 month window that there is a sizable amount of money that we can put into 6 month instruments that we won’t need back until then and then stagger out the rest of the fiscal year so we could as the tax monies.  More than just this 1.5 but I’m mainly talking about tax monies that come in ad valorem taxes we could stagger that in the 6 month investments so that it comes back to us when we need it.  And that’s the part of the plan I would hope we could have some information on for this months meeting.  Commissioner Cole:  I think if we get the cash flow projection in isn’t that what you call ladder in T-bills.  Commissioner Cammick:  And the chief will be back.  The 5 year plan which we haven’t got much past the 6 month plan, but if there’s anything big coming up that Linda may not know about then the chief will be back to work on that part too.  We’re leasing that truck.  Commissioner Elder:  Conversations with the banks I think Mr. Peckinpaugh listed some banks off the small local banks we may want to see what their paper looks like.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  I’ll be happy to talk to Suncoast and Regions.  Commissioner Elder:  My recommendation is going to be that we let the treasurer do it, completely because he’s our treasurer.  Commissioner Cammick:  But if you want to give me names, address of who to call.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  I’ll do the research.  Commissioner Elder:  We have to be careful of the sunshine law.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  Not if he gets it in the mail.  Commissioner Cammick:  If you gave me there research I would still call to verify it.  That’s what I would feel comfortable doing.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  If you’re going to do that you might as well do it from the get go.  Commissioner Cammick:  But if you know who these people are it would make it a lot easier.  Commissioner Elder:  To avoid issues with the sunshine law it needs to be the executive staff doing it with the consultation.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  Well I can do it give it to staff and they can do it.  Commissioner Elder:  If the board authorizes any commissioner to do anything then that commissioner carries the weight of the board and is subject every action, conversation that that commissioner has with any entity becomes a sunshine law issue.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  I’m not looking for authorization I’m just volunteering to do those two.  Commissioner Cammick:  I’m the one that’s authorized.  Commissioner Cole:  I think we do need to follow the protocol because I think the public is going to come forward on this thing.  Commissioner Elder:  My point is I made a call this morning to one bank and said that would be the last that banker heard from me, that banker will be hearing probably from Mr. Cammick.  And let Mr. Cammick have the conversations or the executive staff and come back to us I believe it should be our treasurer that’s where his expertise lies in the past.  Commissioner Cammick:  And we just finished doing this with all the banks Linda has all the information we have all their reports from the banks we have all the people but if you have information if you just give it to Linda.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  Okay.  Commissioner Cammick:   We will put a list of things we need to know about.  Deputy Chief Marzella:  Two questions for my verification if not for Linda’s the T-Bills you talked about several different types 30, 60, 90 days you authorized her to put it into T-Bills does it need to be 30 or 60 or 90 or.  Commissioner Elder:  I think she’s going to be talking to her chief financial consultant right here.  Commissioner Cammick:  We’ll figure that out our main thing we’ve got to figure out right now is about who can buy them.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  I think between Jeff and John I mean we are paying Tuscan to do something.  Commissioner Elder:  Yes.  Deputy Chief Marzella:  That was my next question at one point you said to have Tuscan involved then you just said Cammick.  Commissioner Elder:  Well Tuscan’s involved because they are our consultants and obviously they need to be in it.  Commissioner Cox:  I’m sure Linda can remind John when it needs to go to Tuscan.  Commissioner Cammick:  They don’t need to do much work when you’re putting money in T-Bills it’s kind of hard to get into trouble.   Commissioner Elder:  The Florida Gulf Bank came from Jeff Tuscan.  Because he said they are so conservative.  You get a little bit more money on your return then you’re going to get from the T-Bills but they’re probably every bit as solid because they’re so conservative.  Commissioner Peckinpaugh:  You’ve got Busey in there too.  Commissioner Cammick:  Before we get done would you like us to call Fifth Third and find out if they can do T-Bills?  So you leave here knowing.  Commissioner Elder:  The motion doesn’t tie the district to Fifth Third it ties the district into moving the money into T-Bills and leaves the avenue open.  Commissioner Cox:  We don’t need to sit here and wait.  Commissioner Cammick:  I call for the question.  Commissioner Cox:  Seconds call for the question.  Vote on question:  Unanimous.  Vote on original motion unanimous.  Commissioner Elder:  Is there any other discussion that the board would like to have pertaining to the agenda.

Commissioner Cox makes a motion to adjourn with Commissioner Cole to second.  Motion passed unanimously.

 

Meeting adjourned at 2:01 p.m.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

 

 

Linda Richter

District Administrative Assistant

 

_____________________________

James Cole, Secretary