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Information <br />City of <br />Elk ' <br />Pjveoro**� <br />To: Mayor and City Council <br />From: Lori Ziemer, Finance Director <br />Date: April 19, 2021 <br />Subject: Quarterly Investment Report Uanuary —March 2021) <br />Memorandum <br />Introduction <br />The purpose of this report is to update the City Council on the status of the various investments the <br />city maintains as of March 31, 2021. <br />Background <br />The investment policy complies with state statutes and generally follows the Government Finance <br />Officers Association (GFOA) model. <br />The investment goals for the City of Elk River are passive in nature due to the allowable <br />investments permitted under state statutes. The city has four objectives for investing, in order of <br />importance, they are: 1) safety of principal, 2) liquidity, 3) return on investment, and 4) maintaining <br />the public trust. This means we are focused on not losing on the original investment, having <br />sufficient funds on hand to meet ongoing operating cash needs, getting a market rate of return, and <br />not purchasing speculative investments. <br />State statutes limit the city's ability to invest in many risky types of investments. The city is generally <br />limited to federal and state government obligations or agencies backed by them, rated debt of local <br />governments, short-term highly rated commercial paper, certificates of deposit, and money market <br />accounts (with collateralization if in excess of FDIC insurance amounts). <br />The city intends to hold investments until maturity, which means we will get the rate of return for <br />which we invest our funds. The finance staff makes sure the city is sufficiently liquid by continually <br />updating our forecast on the anticipated cash flow needs over the next five-year time horizon. We <br />anticipate two large tax settlements each year along with the regularly -scheduled debt service <br />payments. We also build in a reserve balance maintained in money market accounts in case of <br />unexpected expenditures. <br />