Emergency Communications Board

BRISTOL TENNESSEE EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS DISTRICT BOARD OF DIRECTORS’ MEETING September 18, 2013 The Chair recognized Dwayne Honaker for his reappointment to the Board. ITEM 1. Roll Call Frank Blanton absent. Wallace Elliot came in after roll call. Attorney Ricky Curtis was absent. ITEM 2. Recognize Guests Mike Callahan was present. ITEM 3. Minutes of Previous Meeting – July 17, 2013 Tim Eads made a motion, seconded by Jim Messimer to approve the minutes from the July 17, 2013 Board meeting. All voted in favor. ITEM 4. Financials A. Receipts & Expenditures All receipts and expenditures paperwork were passed around for review and signatures. B. Treasurer’s Report Treasurer David Warren reviewed the Monthly Financial Report, Monthly Budget Report, and Balance Sheet with the Board. Copies were provided to each member. Tim Eads made a motion, seconded by Wallace Elliott, to approve the Treasurer Reports as presented. Roll call vote: Blanton – absent, Eads – yes, Elliott – yes, Honaker – yes, Messimer – yes, Wade – yes, Warren – yes. Motion passed. C. Renewal of Citizens CD $125,877.40 (at .4% currently) by 09/23/2013 Treasurer Warren reported that both CD’s at Citizens Bank are up for renewal on the 23rd of September. Both CD’s are at .4% interest. He reported he has not called any other banks for competing rates, however, in doing audits he found they run anywhere from .25 to .4. He stated .4 is the highest he has seen and .25 is the most common rate on a 6 month to 12 month CD. Mr. Warren recommended they allow the CD’s to automatically renew. Wallace Elliott asked if we had to use Tennessee Banks. There is no specific law requiring us to use Tennessee banks, however, there is a requirement for the FDIC and also that the monies be classified as Tennessee public funds. Also, 911 funds cannot be placed in any type of investment account. It must be a secured account. Tim Eads made a motion, seconded by Dwayne Honaker, to have the Treasurer shop for current rates on CD’s for one and two year terms and to authorize the Treasurer and Director to place the CD’s where they will have the best rate for up to a two year term. Roll call vote: Blanton – absent, Eads – yes, Elliott – yes, Honaker – yes, Messimer – yes, Wade – yes, Warren – yes. Motion passed. D. Renewal of Citizens CD $106,607.30 (at .4% currently) by 09/23/2013 See above  BRISTOL TENNESSEE EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS DISTRICT BOARD OF DIRECTORS’ MEETING September 18, 2013 ITEM 5. Old Business A. Report on Operations & Equipment 1. Overview of Operations a. Radio Low Volume There has not been any significant change. We are still having some problems and they are still being documented and investigated. b. Internet connection The City IT Department has completed the hardware/software installation to provide a primary and secondary internet provider for Communications. c. Status Update on Web page Move to City Server Terri Talbert’s staff is working on this project; however, they are not ready for us to do our portion of the site. d. Update on GEO/GIS/TIPS Jim Messimer and Mrs. Smelser attended the TENA Conference this week. They had a session on GEO/GIS/TIPS. There is a state department not under the TECB that is taking care of building the GEO and GIS files to match the TIPS format. We received an error report in April and there were 700+ errors identified. David Metzger, Jon Hamic, and Mrs. Smelser worked on the errors and significantly reduced them. In June we contacted the group for a new error report. The new report came back showing an increase to 9% errors. When we checked the report closer, the data that was used to compare our new submission dated back to April. The State was contacted and we are waiting on a new error report using current data. At the conference, there was a meeting of the new GEO/GIS project leader. The man who had been over the project resigned and a new person had been appointed. It became very apparent at this meeting that he is not well versed in this system and how it works. There were lots of questions from all over the state and he was unable to provide many of the answers. The TECB Director came in and she has taken on the questions and agreed to follow up. She advised that they will fix the issues and that no one needs to be concerned about the error rate at this point. e. Update on Upgrade to New Protocol/QA Mrs. Smelser viewed another demo of the Powerphone Total Response product at the conference. She stated the more she sees the product and reviews others, the more impressed with the Total Response system. It is very user friendly and is a total package  BRISTOL TENNESSEE EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS DISTRICT BOARD OF DIRECTORS’ MEETING September 18, 2013 encompassing police, fire and medical type calls. The software is adaptable to the particular agency and their needs. Powerphone has obtained a copyright and patent on their product. Mrs. Smelser spoke to the TECB financial auditor and accountant at the meeting concerning purchasing guidelines for this product. She was advised that the Powerphone product would be considered a sole source but that also, a couple of agencies in the state bid this software and the bid was awarded to Powerphone. Due to a new law in Tennessee, if we want to pursue the purchase of this product, we will not have to bid this project. We can list it as sole source and/or piggyback off the previous bid documents. Mrs. Smelser has talked to the vendor about setting up a demo for the Board and command personnel from the affected agencies. B. Statistics Mrs. Smelser reviewed the monthly statistical report. C. Update on Regional 911 Solution Last Wednesday, there was a meeting in Johnson City with the Vice President of Century Link, their technicians, AT&T personnel from across the state that are working on the NETTN project, TCS who oversees the next generation 911 project, State 911 Director, the Assistant State 911 Director, the State 911 Technical Director, and representatives from each of the eight regional 911 Districts. All of the problems that have occurred were discussed. The vendors and the State personnel discussed the things that are being implemented to resolve the issues. It was a very productive meeting. It is important to note, however, that is clear that we will not have the level of redundancy in the next generation 911 system that we have today because we are going from a hard line system to an IP network based system. Networks fail. The State is very active is working with the vendors to make the system more stable and more reliable than it has been. Most of the major changes will be in place by the end of the first week of October. As soon as those changes have been implemented, we will begin migrating the remaining Districts to the new system. The exceptions will be Carter County who is building a new building and will not be able to cut to the new system until early spring and Unicoi County who is also in the process of obtaining a new facility. Mrs. Smelser advised the group that after the major changes have been completed, she will evaluate the system and make a decision on moving forward with a cutover. The State is hopeful that Kingsport, Greene County, and Bristol will be cut to the new system before the end of the year. ITEM 6. New Business Blaine Wade expressed concerned over the small amount of interest paid on the First Tennessee account for the past year. Mrs. Smelser will follow up with the bank on this issue and report at the next meeting.  BRISTOL TENNESSEE EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS DISTRICT BOARD OF DIRECTORS’ MEETING September 18, 2013 Surety bonds copies are being provided to the Board members as they become available. Mrs. Smelser advised there have been some changes to the State law in how surety bonds are being handled. The bonds must be based on 4% of your revenues for one year. The formula does not include any money currently in checking, savings, CD’s etc. The amount is based on what the entity receives in a given year and the figure is obtained through the annual audit. The term of the bond is for the four year term of the Board member and they must be individual bonds, not blanket bonds. Only those who have access to the money are required to have a surety bond. Some boards only use two or three people to handle the funds. Our Board chose to put everyone on our checking and savings accounts. The bonds have to be registered with the Registrar of Deeds office and then they are given to the City or County recorder. Last year our revenue was about $545,000. Four percent of that amount is $21,428. Our bonds were based on the old formula and are issued for $45,000. As the bonds are renewed, we should see some cost savings. Mrs. Smelser will look at the projected revenues with TECB grants for the next year and costs for the different amounts on the surety bonds. The decrease in 911 revenue is a hot topic across the state. One of the senators has put together a work group and they are trying to find a possible solution for the revenue short fall. Some districts have suggested a flat rate for everyone across the state that is sent to the TECB and then divided among the Districts. Many of the Districts oppose this suggestion because they feel they are not getting a fair share of the wireless money currently. There are four districts in Tennessee that get 34% of the wireless revenue. There were lengthy discussions at the conference concerning the present polices and laws for at-risk districts. Currently, the policy is that any district that has three years of negative change in net assets is to be classified as at-risk. In the past, the districts were told that if we spent money from our savings, CD’s etc for capital equipment, etc, the state looked at that as a negative change in net assets because the money coming in for the current year did not cover those expenses. They stated you spent more money that you received in revenue. Yesterday, the State financial people stated that if you had the money in savings and spent it on capital expenditures, then it is not concerned a negative change in net assets. Districts that are considered at risk can have their finances taken over by the TECB or they can be forced to merge with another district. Blaine Wade stated that there are several in this area that would like to see Bristol merged with other Districts. He stated it is not in the best interests of this Board or the City of Bristol to merge with another District. ITEM 7. Discussion Items ITEM 8. Other Matters ITEM 9. Citizens and Delegations Presentation ITEM 10. Next meeting October 16, 2013.