RANCHO MURIETA, CA (MPG) - Long-delayed audits, confusion over reserve policies and unusually strong praise for the district’s finance director dominated the Rancho Murieta Community Services District Finance Committee meeting on Nov. 13.

The Finance Committee is made up of Board President John Merchant, Director Bill Gere, Director of Finance and Administration Cecilia Min, Interim General Manager Amelia Wilder and other district staff. The committee reviews financial issues in depth and refers its recommendations to the entire board.

Min reported that preparation for the 2022-23 and 2023-24 audits has been slower than expected.

“Mostly, we are stuck on the bank reconciliations,” she said. “There were a lot of duplicated transactions and transactions that weren’t voided… But we are about 85% done.”

Min said she hopes auditors can begin their work shortly after the new year. 

“I think in January, I will be able to coordinate with the auditor to come in and start the audit,” she said. “Hopefully, they can finish it within two weeks.”

She added that handling two years of audit records simultaneously has contributed to the delay.
 To keep the work on track, Min has temporarily set aside the 2024-25 audit so staff can concentrate on completing the 2022-23 and 2023-24 audits first. Once those two audits are finished, she said she will shift resources back to 2024-25. “That should be a fast one,” she said.

Min said she will focus on the current-year 2025-26 financials, with the goal of producing a preliminary financial statement by early January so it aligns with the first presentation of the 2026-27 budget in February. 

“If my financials for 25-26 are not done, we have a problem,” she said.

Regarding the current 2025-26 accounting, Min said she has already set up the district’s new Chart of Accounts and begun to upload data. She told the board on Oct. 15 that the old Chart of Accounts contained roughly 2,050 lines of accounting, which she described as “really confusing” for a small agency.

Min also reported that activating two additional modules in the district’s Great Plains financial system has gone smoothly. The automated allocation module now distributes administrative costs to the district’s various funds, replacing what had been a labor-intensive manual process.

Committee Chair John Merchant noted the improvement during the meeting. 

“Looking down at the bottom of the page, for the first time in history we have two numbers that are the same,” he said. “We never understood that Great Plains could do this.”

Min said she is also evaluating whether to move Great Plains to a cloud-based platform because the district’s onsite server has become unreliable. A new server would cost about $12,000, while the cost of migrating to the cloud is not yet known. One advantage of the cloud option, she noted, is that it would provide the latest version of Great Plains and ongoing updates.

Min presented a chart summarizing restricted reserve fund balances for the audited fiscal years 2020-21 and 2021-22, as well as preliminary figures for 2022-23 and 2023-24. She also identified the sources of the funds, which come from either developer fees or ratepayer fees.

For 2023-24, the reserves totaled $11.1 million. After subtracting capital improvement project commitments, the amount actually available dropped to $8.4 million. The figures did not include depreciation, which Min said affects how much the district should be collecting for long-term replacement of infrastructure. She added that even the full $11 million before project spending is not sufficient, given that district infrastructure is valued at about $24 million.

Min then shifted the committee’s attention to the district’s Operating Fund and Reserve Policy, last updated in 2012. The policy was projected on the screen as she walked through several issues. 

“We still have a lot of work to do… because this policy needs a lot of update,” she said. Her handout indicated that staff expects to bring a revised version to the next meeting.

A lengthy discussion followed about the policy and its implications for long-term planning. The complexity prompted a comment from Wilder, who said that in her six years with the district, Min was the first finance director to examine the policies closely and try to reconcile them with the audit work.

“It’s a perfect example of why the audit is taking longer than expected, because everything you are doing brings you to these conundrums. Why did we collect this? Why did we stop collecting this?” she said.

Min agreed. 

“It’s not just doing the mechanical mathematics. It’s reading the policy and understanding if we did it right… so it takes a little longer,” she said. “We have been collecting way less than we should have been, even in the connection fees.”

Merchant added that Min was the first to question why money had never been placed into a replacement fund described in the policy. 

“I’ve been here for 30 years, and we never had a discussion like that in our lives,” he said. “You have been and are doing a fantastic job every day.”

Wilder said she had “seen more movement in the past six or seven months than I have seen in six years.” 

Chief Plant Operator Travis Bohannon also offered praise, saying, “I don’t think Cecilia gets the recognition she deserves. You can literally see the smoke coming out of her ears because of how hard she’s working.”

“She doesn’t let these things go,” Wilder added. “She is not only committed to getting answers; she’s committed to getting the right answers. We love her.”