Northeast Counties Chapter Meeting - April 23, 2019

The Northeast Counties Chapter held its first chapter meeting of 2019 on April 23, 2019. There was no host, no venue, and participants were hundreds of miles apart. While CSMFO offers quite a wide variety of high-quality educational webinars, this was the first time that a local chapter used CSMFO’s video conferencing software, Zoom, for a chapter meeting.

Our first speaker was Tom Adams, Client Services Executive from Avenu Insights & Analytics. Tom discussed legislative changes that occurred in 2018, including the following:

  • Senate Constitutional Amendment (SCA) 20 – Glazer: Internet Sales – Point of Sale to Point of Destination;
  • Property Tax Split Roll initiative – 2020 ballot; and
  • Prohibition on Grocery/Sweetened Beverage Taxes through 2031.

Tom provided an overview of the legislative calendar, along with the following items on the horizon for 2019:

  • SB 531 – Glazer: Bands warehouse sales tax rebate deals;
  • AB 11 – Chiu/Aguiar-Curry: RDA-like housing program with tax increment financing;
  • AB 286 – Bonta: Reduce Cannabis excise tax from 15% to 11% and suspends cultivation tax through June 1, 2022;
  • SB 669 – Caballero: Safe Drinking Water Fund

Jeff Probst, Vice President and Portfolio Manager from Chandler Asset Management, was the second speaker. Jeff provided an economic forecast, an overview of the Federal Open Market Committee, and its impact on local government investing. In particular, Jeff mentioned the following salient points:

  • Utilizing the U-6 rather than the U-3 unemployment rate;
  • CPI and PCE are at or below the Fed’s 2.0% target;
  • Inversion of the yield curve

While an in-person chapter meeting is preferable, there are several benefits to hosting chapter meetings via the Zoom video conferencing software, including 1) No driving required to attend the meeting, reducing CSMFO’s carbon footprint; 2) No physical room needed for the meeting, freeing up facility resources for other purposes; and 3) the chapter meeting is free to our members.

Given the Northeast Counties Chapter’s success using Zoom, this trend could expand to CSMFO’s other remote chapters to facilitate future chapter meeting needs. The Northwest Chapter is Chaired by Richard Lee, Finance Director at City of San Mateo.

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The Northwest Chapter is supported by CSMFO Board Member Richard Lee, Finance Director at City of San Mateo and Chaired by Sandy Ryan, Finance Director at the City of Red Bluff. Sandy has worked at the City of Red Bluff for 8 years as their Finance Director. She graduated from UNLV, got my CPA license in Nevada and California. Her interests include boating, swimming, and gardening. She is also a member of CA society of CPAs, GFOA, and certainly CSMFO.

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