City receives 'clean audit'

Butch Beeman, Trout, Beeman & Company, told the Nevada City Council during their meeting Tuesday night that there were no significant findings in the city's 2011 fiscal audit.

"The city has made great strides since last year's audit," Beeman said.

Dana McIntire said that this gives the city a clean audit.

"That's the highest level you can receive," she said.

"There were no findings this year. All from last year have been corrected," McIntire said.

She told the council that the city's staff was very responsive to requests.

"There was a lot of improvements over last year," she said.

"It's always nice having a nice clean audit," Mayor Brian Leonard said.

In other business the council:

* Approved the reappointment of Shirley Ann Bastow, Amyl Bishop and Warren Schooley to second three year terms on the park board.

* Voted 4-0, with Jayne Novak excused, to pass on first and second readings an emergency ordinance authorizing the city manager to execute any documents with Global Software necessary to retrieve Nevada's law enforcement files, with the cost not to exceed $10,000. City Manager JD Kehrman told the council that the expected cost will be about $7,000. "This will move the city's files to a city server and purge any sensitive files from the shared server," he said.

* Voted 4-0 to pass on first reading a special ordinance approving a contract with Lochner Inc., Kansas City, for $152,265 to allow for engineering services during the construction phase and closeout phase of resurfacing of the parking pad and apron at the Nevada Municipal Airport. Approximately 95 percent of this project is paid for with federal and state funding. Five percent of the cost comes from the city.

* Voted 4-0 to pass on first reading a general ordinance amending the city's personnel code to allow the hiring of family members as seasonal employees in the same department as long as they do not supervise each other. City Manager JD Kehrman told the council this particularly impacts the parks department.

* Voted 3-0 to pass on second reading a general ordinance to amend the city's personnel code to change the requirement of a new employee to file a W-4 form with the human resources department instead of with the city clerk.

* Voted 3-0 to pass on second reading a general ordinance amending the city's personnel code to clarify that the city only pays vacation leave to employees who give two weeks notice before voluntarily ending employment with the city.

* Voted 3-0 to pass on second reading a general ordinance amending the city's personnel code to clarify that only retiring city employees are paid for any accrued sick leave. This is not paid for any other reason.

* Voted 3-0 to pass on second reading a general ordinance amending the city's personnel code to repeal the special police benefit of a housing expense reimbursement. This incentive was instituted when it was difficult to recruit and retain police officers. Kehrman told the council that it has not been used since 2003.

* Voted 3-0 to pass on second reading a special ordinance approving a contract with the Nevada Housing Authority for additional policing services. The cost of this contract will be paid by the Housing Authority.