INCLUDES:

1. Public Officials Bond (Timberlane)
2. Bankruptcy Claims for Sale (Libertyville)
3. Cell Phone Use Policy (Calumet City)
4. Customer's Bank Pays Utility Bill via ACH Processing Service (Highland)
5. Pension Fund Accounting Services (Waukegan)
6. Salary Survey (for pop. under 5,000 and pop. 5,000-10,000) (Kingston)
7. IMTA Institute
8. Certification points for Round Table and Regional Meetings

JoEllen reports that the IMTA Membership directories will be mailed soon.

Update: Brian Gosnell accepted our counter-offer to his McHenry offer and has choosen to stay with Grayslake. I think he was going to miss me. :)

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1. PUBLIC OFFICIALS BOND

I'm the Treasurer of the Village of Timberlane and my Public Official's Bond is up for renewal. I did a little research and can't find any clear guidelines for the amount I should be bonded for. Are there any laws or best practices, formulas, calculations, etc. related to the amount a Treasurer should be bonded for?

Thanks,
Sylvia Gorman , Treasurer
Village of Timberlane

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2. BANKRUPTCY CLAIMS FOR SALE

Hi Mike,

In your next IMTA help e-mail could you ask if anyone has sold a bankruptcy claim to another company. We have been receiving letters from a company in New York that will pay us 82% of a bankruptcy claim for a company located in our Village. The claim is from a water/sewer bill prior to when the company declared bankruptcy. The business owes us $9,166 and this company will pay us $7500.00 if we assign the claim to them. Part of me thinks if they want to offer us that amount of money, they think that they will eventually get more after the bankruptcy is settled.

Thanks
Pat Wesolowski
Pwesolowski@libertyville.com

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3. CELL PHONE USE POLICY

I am working on the city's cell phone use policy for employees and elected officials. I am interested in knowing how other city's handle this issue and would like to get a copy of their policy. Could you please ask the other members to share with me their policies? I would appreciate any assistance any member can offer me. My daytime phone number is 708-891-8130.

Thanks,
Mike Zimmerman
Calumet City
mzimmerman@calumetcity.org

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4. CUSTOMER'S BANK PAYS UTILITY BILL VIA ACH PROCESSING SERVICE

Is anyone (City) set up to receive utility payments through Princeton E-Com service for "Home payments" (whereby a customer pays their bills through their own bank's bill pay system).

Princeton E-Com is a Web ACH processing service that local banks can use to process the bank's bill pay options. Princeton E-Com would send an ACH to our City's bank account instead of the local bank sending us numerous checks. We can then either print the file or download it to Excel so we can upload the electronic file right into our Cash Receipts software.

I definitely think we should start using this free service to reduce our work load and move into the 21st century of electronic payments, but since I've never heard of Princeton E-Com, I want to know how well the company performs for other cities.

Please let me know if you have had experience in this area with Princeton E-Com. Thanks.

Sharon Rusteberg, Director of Finance
City of Highland Illinois
srusteberg@ci.highland.il.us

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5. PENSION FUND ACCOUNTING SERVICES

Mike,

My name is Cindy Tekampe and I am the Deputy Treasurer for the City of Waukegan. I am also working part-time for the Police and Firemen's Pension funds. I cut the monthly pension checks and do some monthly accounting for them. I am interested in finding out what other pension funds do for this work. Do they hire someone part-time, full-time, or do they hire an accounting firm, etc.? And how much do they pay for the services? Would you help me with this research and send e-mails to other IMTA members that may be able to assist?

I appreciate your help in this matter. If you have any questions, please e-mail or call me at 847-599-2569.

Thank you,
Cindy Tekampe
Cindy.Tekampe@ci.waukegan.il.us

RESPONSE:

Cindy,
The Peoria Firemen's Pension Fund hires an outside accounting firm. The average monthly fee is approximately $1650. They do all the accounting for the fund from payroll, including taxes and insurance, to filing the report with the State Insurance Division.

Reg Willis, Treasurer
City of Peoria
RWillis@ci.peoria.il.us

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6. SALARY SURVEY (for pop. under 5,000 and pop. 5,000-10,000)

Please send out an e-mail survey for treasurers' salaries.

Catagory #1 (Population under 5,000)
Contact name & email:
Municipality name:
County name:
Population:
Annual Salary: $

Catagory #2 (Population 5,000-10,000)
Contact name & email:
Municipality name:
County name:
Population:
Annual Salary: $

Thank you so much!
Taunya Fischer
Village of Kingston
kingston@tbcnet.com

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7. TREASURERS INSTITUTE:

November 13-17, 2005,
Location is listed as Decatur, IL Holiday Inn.
http://www.imtausa.org/inst.htm

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8. CERTIFICATION POINTS FOR ROUND TABLE & REGIONAL MEETINGS

The Standards for IMTA certification can be found on our website at http://www.imtausa.org/standard.htm

The criteria for hosting a Round Table and earning points can be found at http://www.imtausa.org/CertRoundMeet.htm

The criteria for hosting a Regional Meeting and earning points can be found at http://www.imtausa.org/CertRegMeet.htm