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City of Elk River 2004 Annual Report Certipcate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting The city was awarded a Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting for its Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) for the year ended December 3 I, 2003. This is the fifteenth consecutive year the city has received this award. The 2004 CAFR will also be submitted to the Government Finance Officer's Association of the United States and Canada for review. The 2003 CAFR was the first report completed under GASB Statement 34. Receiving the Certificate of Achievement for the 2003 report was very rewarding as the report was almost completely different from the past. Preparation for completing the report under the new Statement started years earlier with planning and information gathering. The assistant finance director worked with the engineer to value all of the city's infrastructure which was a large part of the change in reporting. In addition, the report itself changed significantly to report data by business and non-business activities. Much of the detail that was in previous CAFR's is no longer available as the information is reported to give the reader a broader city-wide perspective. Financial Management Plan Several of the eight action items listed in the Financial Management Plan are ongoing items that are addressed annually such as the adoption of a five year Capital Improvement Plan (CIP), preparation of updated projections of property tax rates and other financial data. Others are one-time items that have been completed such as meeting compliance with Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) Statement 34. The one outstanding issue is the establishment of a storm sewer improvement district to finance activities under the surface water management plan. No action is currently planned on this action item as it will be addressed in the future as necessary to finance storm water projects. The Financial Management Plan will be updated in 2005. The plan may include several new policies to address debt levels and other financial issues. In addition, staff has been reviewing the impact of ongoing project such as the pavement rehabilitation program on the city's tax rate. This information will be presented to the Council in April or May. HUMAN RESOURCES The Human Resources division previously was part of the Finance Department and did not have any employees dedicated entirely to human resource issues. The finance director served as director and the payroll clerk assisted with day-to-day human resource activities. Human resource needs continued to grow as the city grew and added new employees. It was apparent that the needed human resource functions could not be accomplished without additional staff. In addition, the finance director and payroll clerk had generated a list of goals, projects, and plans they wanted to complete but were not able to because there was no staff time available to work on these projects. As part of the city reorganization, the payroll clerk was promoted to human resources representative to work exclusively on human resource issues. The accounting clerk was