Since the swearing in of its new members last May, the Board of the Castle Pines North Metro District has been focused on a number of key objectives:

Ensuring that CPN is on track for a long-term renewable water solution,

Exploring ways to gain efficiency with the newly-formed City;

Ensuring that the District is financially responsible in all its activities;

Ensuring that the District is operationally viable.

Significant progress has been made on the first priority, including acquisition of storage space in the Rueter-Hess Reservoir, acquisition of 250 acre-feet of renewable water rights on the South Platte, active participation in a number of regional initiatives to ensure access to leased water and involvement in joint projects that have value to Castle Pines North and conversations continue with the City to find the right ways to merge responsibilities between the two entities.

With these activities well under way, the Board directed some of its attention to items 3 and 4 with the selection, in December 2008, of Gemsbok Consulting to perform an operational and financial assessment of the Metro District.

Gemsbok is a local management consulting firm that specializes in the assessment and improvement of special districts. Gemsbok was directed by the Board to perform a thorough, unbiased assessment of all aspects of the District’s financial, operational, and organizational responsibilities. In doing this, Gemsbok established a set of benchmarks, polled over 90 local districts, and collected the results from over 30 districts from across the Front Range as a baseline against which to compare CPNMD.

In addition, Gemsbok staff reviewed current financial statements, operational documentation, and performed interviews with all staff members in order to provide a comprehensive review of all aspects of the District’s performance.

Winding up these activities in mid-April, Gemsbok is now preparing final reports and presentations for the District and its members. These findings will be presented publicly in the coming months, but early reviews show that Castle Pines North has a financially strong district, in-line or better than similar districts in most financial benchmarks. Improvement of some operational disciplines and personnel procedures promise to provide further improvement to this strong operational base.

“Our assessment found that the CPN Metro District is ahead of similar districts with both fiscal responsibility and sustainable water planning,” said Christina Griggs with Gemsbok Consulting. “The District is committed to improving its operations to provide a superior working environment.”

Keep watch for meeting notices in the coming months, where the Gemsbok team will be presenting their findings and recommendations for review by all interested parties. The final report will also be made available on the CPNMD web site and summarized in a coming article in this paper.