Auditor Nick Myers gave the Goodman City Board of Aldermen the final numbers on last year’s budget Tuesday night, and alderman Kevin Reardon commented that it was “always good” to see them.
Total assets for the balance were at $4.1 million, and liabilities were $1.2 million, leaving almost $3 million in net assets.
Myers said after the meeting that these numbers showed the city’s budget at “a snapshot in time,” which was Dec. 31, 2009.
He then gave a statement of activities of the city of Goodman for their previous fiscal year to better show what happened in the year’s finances.
Overall, there was a decrease of $257,000 in 2009, with more expenses than revenues. However, when adding in the money collected from taxes, net assets increased $129,000.
In making his recommendations to the council, Myers suggested as much segregation of duties as possible when assigning financial duties to city employees.
“You do not want one person sending out the bills, collecting the money, recording that the money was received, making the deposit to the bank account and reporting to you (council members) as well,” Myers said.
Also at the meeting, Goodman judge Clyde Davidson also spoke up on some of the council’s recent decisions in which he feels he was treated unfairly.
Last month, the council denied Davidson’s request for three days of pay while he was at a conference on the grounds that the city already paid for his hotel, mileage and admission. He again requested payment and brought up some issues with his salary, which was cut at the start of his new term in May. Between the budget meeting in December 2009 and his paycheck in May 2010, he was not told by any council members that his pay was cut.
“I don’t necessarily have an issue with the fact that you felt it needed to be cut,” Davidson said. “I really felt that it was unfair and disrespectful to me and my position not to be contacted about it or have any discussions.”
He said he would not have had an issue with his pay cut of $50 a month if a council member had told him about it prior to receiving a smaller paycheck. A few aldermen responded with understanding.
“I want to apologize for the things that were done wrong,” said alderman Greg Richmond.
In the end, however, the council did not give Davidson the three days pay for the conference, but Davidson said he understood why they didn’t. He added that there were “no hard feelings” between he and the council, and he did not intend to hurt the city’s reputation when expressing his displeasure.
In other news from the meeting, the council approved Kevin Green’s request to vary a city ordinance and allow him to live in a camping trailer on his property while he completes repairs to his house at 164 W. Boyer Loop.
