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Discrepancies will be brought to light and some numbers tweaked following a three-hour budget work session Tuesday night between Neosho administrative officials, department heads and city council members.
City finance director Martha Mundt explained the unfinished budget draft to the members of council page by page — 51 in all — answering questions along the way. She also presented a five-page summary of city revenues, which she said should soon be available on the city’s website. The proposed budget for next fiscal year, as produced so far, is already available for viewing and downloading.
The budget presented Tuesday, Mundt noted, is incomplete and does not yet reflect non-departmental expenditures, such as city hall building maintenance and the repayment of restricted funds that were inappropriately borrowed by the previous city administration; the hotel/motel sales tax fund; detailed debt service pages; and a revenue versus expenditures summary. She said those items would be presented as ready. Another work session is scheduled for next Tuesday, Aug. 31. The council has until Oct. 1 to adopt a balanced budget.
Mundt said the summaries would reflect a balanced budget for next fiscal year, but indicated that the proof would be found within the pages of the completed draft.
“It is a high priority to show documentation so that you know that this is a balanced budget,” Mundt said.
She also called the proposed budget a “fluid document” and said that changes would be made as new information is brought to light. She said she only had about six weeks to do what normally takes several months in order to meet the deadline.
“This is not a typical budget process,” Mundt said.
Among the changes made to next year’s budget, Mundt said, were removing designated sales tax funds from the general revenue category and placing them into separate accounts under special revenue.
In response to a question from Mayor Richard Davidson, Mundt said that salaries for city employees remain flat next year, in part reflecting a voluntary pay cut of 3.75 percent across the board. Councilwoman Heather Bowers pointed out one exception, but interim City Manager Harlan Moore said that it had been resolved and that the pay in that instance had been reduced.
Bowers commented that the numbers in the budget draft showing this fiscal year’s adopted budget did not match up in some cases to what she and the rest of the council had actually approved.
Discrepancies will be brought to light and some numbers tweaked following a three-hour budget work session Tuesday night between Neosho administrative officials, department heads and city council members.
City finance director Martha Mundt explained the unfinished budget draft to the members of council page by page — 51 in all — answering questions along the way. She also presented a five-page summary of city revenues, which she said should soon be available on the city’s website. The proposed budget for next fiscal year, as produced so far, is already available for viewing and downloading.
The budget presented Tuesday, Mundt noted, is incomplete and does not yet reflect non-departmental expenditures, such as city hall building maintenance and the repayment of restricted funds that were inappropriately borrowed by the previous city administration; the hotel/motel sales tax fund; detailed debt service pages; and a revenue versus expenditures summary. She said those items would be presented as ready. Another work session is scheduled for next Tuesday, Aug. 31. The council has until Oct. 1 to adopt a balanced budget.
Mundt said the summaries would reflect a balanced budget for next fiscal year, but indicated that the proof would be found within the pages of the completed draft.
“It is a high priority to show documentation so that you know that this is a balanced budget,” Mundt said.
She also called the proposed budget a “fluid document” and said that changes would be made as new information is brought to light. She said she only had about six weeks to do what normally takes several months in order to meet the deadline.
“This is not a typical budget process,” Mundt said.
Among the changes made to next year’s budget, Mundt said, were removing designated sales tax funds from the general revenue category and placing them into separate accounts under special revenue.
In response to a question from Mayor Richard Davidson, Mundt said that salaries for city employees remain flat next year, in part reflecting a voluntary pay cut of 3.75 percent across the board. Councilwoman Heather Bowers pointed out one exception, but interim City Manager Harlan Moore said that it had been resolved and that the pay in that instance had been reduced.
Bowers commented that the numbers in the budget draft showing this fiscal year’s adopted budget did not match up in some cases to what she and the rest of the council had actually approved.
“We found discrepancies throughout the (approved) budget,” Moore commented, and later asked Bowers to highlight the numbers that didn’t correspond to the council-approved budget.
Bowers said any discrepancies needed to be brought to the council. Davidson noted the council had been operating on the past administration’s budget for the first seven months of this fiscal year before Moore was hired and didn’t know what amendments had been made during that time without council approval. As only another month is left this fiscal year, he suggested focusing on next year’s budget. He said any amendments proposed to that budget, once it’s approved, ought to be brought before council. Mundt confirmed that, by law, they would have to be. Bowers answered that identifying mistakes in this year’s budget is “very essential as we move forward” in working through next year’s draft and that those mistakes needed to be corrected.
Among other inquires throughout the evening, Bowers questioned spending $5,000 out of the general fund for membership dues and training for general administration officials, when not all departments received money for training. Mundt said training was beneficial for employees to make them more efficient at their jobs. As to other departments, she said it was applicable to the job and was budgeted for when money was available.
Bowers said she felt that the pay gap between top administrative officials and the bottom rung employees was too wide anyway and suggested eliminating “extras” to send a message. She said last year’s expenses, including travel, for city administrative officials topped $60,000.
“Are we discussing this year’s budget or last year’s budget?” Mundt replied.
Davidson later said he felt that some money should be set aside for training new council members at a two days, one night seminar that is held each year. He said that when he was elected he, and other newly elected council members, paid the cost out of their own pockets to attend and didn’t ask for reimbursement.
Councilman Tom Workman concurred that it might be wise. Mundt asked how much she should budget for. Davidson said $750.
Bowers pointed out that funding figures for certain capital improvement projects outlined in a separate five-year plan did not match up with the numbers in the budget document.
Mundt said the capital improvement plan was only a planning document to summarize needs that department heads have recently recognized are present, but are unfunded. She said the figures in the plan are not yet approved appropriations.
Bowers contended that many of the capital improvement projects, such as the future city public works building, had been planned out by the previous city administration and the projected costs should be reconfigured. Moore said they already have been.
“This (capital improvements plan) is not mirrored from last year’s plan — it is a brand new document,” he stated.
Neosho Public Works Director Mike Hightower later noted that if any bids had been awarded on capital improvement projects, but were not acted upon within 60 days, they had already been made null and the project would have to be rebid in the future.
Mundt pointed out that revenue from the economic development sales tax would go toward paying off debt service for capital improvements, as well to the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) fund, and that any extra would be put into reserve for capital improvements, as designated by state law.
Davidson noted this meant no money for the Neosho Area Chamber of Commerce for economic development, and said the economic development tax advisory committee had voted that morning to recommend all reserve money be put toward building a new spec building.
Ray Stipp, chairman of that board, was given permission to speak during the work session to explain the reasoning.
Naming a long list of industries that have been brought to Neosho as a result of the old spec building, Stipp said that constructing a new building would be very instrumental to continuing economic development efforts in Neosho.
“We think the spec building has been the best economic development investment the city has ever made,” Stipp said. “In these times, Neosho needs this marketing tool.”
Bowers said she thought the reserve funds could better be spent on paying off more of the city’s debt service. However, Davidson said that since much of it had been refinanced, there were actually penalties in place, in some cases, for early pay-off.
Going through the budget draft, Mundt pointed out several department budgets where overtime and holiday pay had not been computed, but would be in the final document.
Also, she noted places in the budget where some department positions were traded for others within the department.
For instance, the current draft reflects a police corporal’s position that is no longer there and an unfilled patrolman’s slot that now is. In one or two cases, certain department positions will be funded after all. Those items will be remedied in the final budget.
Mundt also said that the final budget draft will reflect all approved full-time positions within the city, even if those jobs remain unfunded this upcoming fiscal year.
Other changes to the budget that were pointed out by city department heads Tuesday include lower than projected revenues in the areas of farmers’ market fees, golf cart pass fees and wastewater pretreatment surcharges.
At the end of the session, Moore noted the budget draft that had just been reviewed, even unfinished, represented more than 23 hours of budget meetings.
Davidson thanked the city staff for coming up with a budget that was “council friendly” in its clarity.
Workman, who spent nearly two decades as a city employee, noted that it was also “public friendly” and very comprehendible.
“This is probably the first time in 20 years that I’ve actually understood it,” he laughed.
