Information #2 04-20-2020 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Information City of Elk ' Pjveoro**� To: Mayor and City Council From: Lori Ziemer, Finance Director Date: April 20, 2020 Subject: Quarterly Investment Report Uanuary —March 2020) Memorandum Introduction The purpose of this report is to update the City Council on the status of the various investments the city maintains as of March 31, 2020. Background The investment policy complies with state statutes and generally follows the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) model. The investment goals for the City of Elk River are passive in nature due to the allowable investments permitted under state statutes. The city has four objectives for investing. In order of importance, they are: 1) safety of principal, 2) liquidity, 3) return on investment, and 4) maintaining the public trust. This means we are focused on not losing on the original investment, having sufficient funds on hand to meet ongoing operating cash needs, getting a market rate of return, and not purchasing speculative investments. State statutes limit the city's ability to invest in many risky types of investments. The city is generally limited to federal and state government obligations or agencies backed by them, rated debt of local governments, short-term highly rated commercial paper, certificates of deposit, and money market accounts (with collateralization if in excess of FDIC insurance amounts). The city intends to hold investments until maturity, which means we will get the rate of return for which we invest our funds. The finance staff makes sure the city is sufficiently liquid by continually updating our forecast on the anticipated cash flow needs over the next five-year time horizon. We anticipate two large tax settlements each year along with the regularly scheduled debt service payments. We also build in a reserve balance maintained in money market accounts in case of unexpected expenditures.