5.7. ERMUSR 02-12-2019 - Laserfiche WebLink

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the opportunity to reduce staffing levels through attrition.These saving contributed to ERMU being in a position to lower rates in 2019. • Front Counter Evaluation—This employee suggested initiative has been under evaluation for a few years and was successfully implemented in late 2018.The work involved fortifying the existing front counter and adding bullet proof glass on the existing counter.The initiative was planned with multiple considerations in mind including employee safety, customer friendliness, and cost. Staff did an outstanding job maximizing employee safety, balancing with customer friendliness, and considering value verses cost.The work was planned and performed with significant input from the City of Elk River Building Maintenance Department, the Police Department, and the IT Department. • Office Furniture Evaluation—This employee suggested initiative was implemented in conjunction with the front counter fortification.The initiative goal was to improve employee safety at the front counter by improving sightlines through the office. A secondary goal was to improve office work flow.This initiative was implemented using existing office furniture and equipment for minimal cost.The City of Elk River Building Maintenance Department and IT Department provided significant assistance in the implementation.This success of this initiative lead to a new initiative to evaluate and implement improvements to the accounting office area to improve working environment and work flow.This new 2019 initiative should be able to be completed with low to no cost impact and yield positive workspace improvement value. • City of Elk River Local Option Sales Tax(LOST)—The successful referendum to create a LOST has an operational and financial impact on ERMU because of our billing system. The LOST will apply to some, but not all sales through ERMU.To implement this, ERMU will need to work with our billing system provider to create custom software updates. Staff has added this as a high priority 2019 initiative should the ER LOST be approved through state legislation. Review of the 2018 Annual Business Plan The purpose of reviewing the 2018 Annual Business Plan is to evaluate the budget as a tool in addition to performance. By evaluating the usefulness of the tool, staff will be better able to provide monthly information and reports to help the commission evaluate the organization health and direction. Understanding and exploring the areas of risk and sensitivity factors improved the governing body's ability to set policy redirecting an organization toward the short term and long term goals.The Annual Business Plan review should help the commission identify areas of higher risk, evaluate options to mitigate risk, establish their comfort level with risk, and help the commission clearly communicate expectation in handling the risk. Overall Electric Utility performance for 2018 was strong. Unaudited financials indicate that electric margins significantly outperformed budget ($1,045,274 budget, $2,898,258 actual). And while revenue performance was higher than budgeted, the annual expenses were within $15,765 on a $35,513,799 expense budget, 0.04%above budget for the year. Within the Page 6 of 7 78