Goodhue County Commissioners to Meet at the Fair

The Goodhue County Board of Commissioners are scheduled to meet as a Committee of the Whole on the fairgrounds in Zumbrota Thursday.  The meeting is scheduled to start at 9:00 a.m. according to the agenda posting on the county website.  The fair schedule says the meeting begins 10:00 a.m.

The agenda lists a few items will be discussed at the meeting.  Commissioners will receive a treatment court update.  There will be a commercial banking request for proposal discussion.  A 2019 first half investment report will be given.  Commissioners will also hear about a request from BevComm for a broadband grant loan from Goodhue County.

Concerning the banking RFP, Goodhue County Finance Director Brian J. Anderson say in a memo to commissioners the effort was undertaken, "in an effort to receive a better yield on it's checking accounts and explore new service options unknown to the county."

Anderson explained in the memo they received six proposals and interviewed five local banks.  "Staff would like to report that it's expectations have been met and is proposing to stay with Wells Fargo, which it has a 40 year history with."

A 13 page RFP was let on May 8th with a June 10th closure.  Six proposals were received and five of the banks met the minimum requirement of having a branch in Goodhue County.  Interviews were conducted with Alliance Bank, Associated Bank, Citizen Community Federal Bank, Merchants Bank and Wells Fargo.

After a 90 minute presentation from each bank and "several follow-up emails, staff had two additional internal meetings to deliberate the findings and merits of each proposal and presentation and felt that Wells Fargo was the best choice to offer commercial banking services for the County."

From the proposal the memo explains, "the County will now be taking advantage of a sweep account that Wells Fargo will offer whereby the County's funds will only be transferred over from a money market account as needed.  The money market is currently 2.25%, competitive to the MAGIC fund and 0.30% higher than the next proposal, which is considerably higher than our current earnings allowance rate and now allows us to actually earn money on the fund balance."

The first half of this year Investment Report shows Goodhue County has two checking accounts with Wells Fargo in Red Wing with a interest yield of 0.00%.  The balance in one account is $3,701,776.91 and the other account shows a balance as of June 30, 2019 of $51,345.14.

The report also shows a savings account at Merchants Bank in Red Wing has an interest yield of 0.10% and a balance of $50.00.