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PEDC Board Meeting Minutes August 18, 2017 Page 3 of 6 the seven percent does not increase our employees' wages. Mr. Paris went on to Total Operating Expenses and pointed out the 0% increase. Marketing and Promotion total went down $7,000.00 due to Lamar County Days is every two years. Mr. Banks asked about Travel Expenses and if employees were traveling for training should it be included with Training Expenses. It was agreed that they were two different expense items. Mr. Paris went on to Job Training and pointed out that the ACT WorkKeys had been reduced. He commented that not as many students were taking the test. Also, the BodyGuard Training has run out for next year and the High Demand Job Training Match Grant has not been requested. The Job Training total has dropped by (48%) from last year. Direct Business Incentives show that the Park Street Project as a one-time project to redo a street; Powder Innovations had property taxes last year on a piece of property they gave back to us and we paid the taxes on said property. Our open Incentives are Paris Lakes for $250,000.00, BodyGuard for $25,000.00, Potters Industries for $8,000.00, and Daisy Dairy for $94,900.00. Mr. Paris went further down the Budget to Debt Service and noted that the PEDC Bonds and the Bank of New York will be paid off after next year. The Total Budget Expenses for the last fiscal year were $1,298,384.77 and this year they are down to $1.206,676.00, which is a decrease of seven percent (-7%) We are projecting a tax surplus of $209,000.00. Mr. Hughes asked if no one was taking the ACT WorkKeys test. Mr. Paris said that not as many students taking the test and at a cost $35.00 a student it will not be affected by the reduced budget. Mr. Hamill said that as a vocational counselor he was not aware this test was available. Mr. Hughes made a motion to approve the Budget for 2017-2018. Mr. Hamill seconded the motion. Vote was 5 -ayes to 0 -nays. Discuss PEDC monthly board meeting dates. Mr. Paris asked for a discussion of meeting dates so that the Board could find a date that worked for all the Board Members' schedules. Everyone agreed to 9:30 a.m. on the 3rd Friday of the month as the Board Meeting date. 12:00 p.m. Mr. Banks asked to be excused from the rest of the meeting. Discuss the Internal File Audit. Mr. Paris made the Board aware that we as employees are ready to provide customer service. Let it be noted that the customer is not just the Director or the Board, but the citizens of Paris, Texas. Our files and our agreements consistently get pulled to test our files and filing system. We invited Ms. Harris to do an Internal Audit of our files by coming in, asking for a file, and checking its contents to make sure everything is in order. Mr. Stout pulled compliance binders for Paris Lakes, Campbell's and BodyGuard; Ms. Harris found all the content was in the binders. She gave suggestions to make the files more user friendly. Mr. Paris thanked Mr. Stout for his work on completing the files and making sure the information was accurate. Mr. Manning also thanked Mr. Paris, Mr. Stout and Ms. Brownfield for the office organization saying he remembers not finding files because of the mess the files were in. Mr. Paris stated that "we have nothing to hide in this organization. We're out to create jobs, we're out to retain jobs and when we develop an incentive agreement with somebody we want to participate in that job growth; but at the same time we want to make sure all parties are held accountable to the cash or incentives that we offer."