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Alexander only city in county without budget |
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Tuesday, 02 February 2010 |
The city of Alexander still has not approved a budget for 2010 — even though state law requires one to be passed on or before Feb. 1 — following a City Council budget meeting Monday night.
Additional meetings to pass the Alexander 2010 budget ordinance will continue. The council agreed to not yet pass the budget, thereby bypassing the state law requiring all city budgets to be passed “on or before Feb. 1.”
Instead, the council agreed to keep the 2009 budget in place until the 2010 budget can be passed, which should keep the city in the clear legally for the time being.
The 2010 budget was tabled after a point of legal matters was made by Alderman Paul Mitchell.
“I don’t have the December monthly financial reports, but by averaging out the November reports, as close as I could get, the city’s expenditures exceeded the revenue by $15,000 to $20,000. That being said, we can’t pass a budget until we clear any type of deficit the city has,” Mitchell said.
According to state law, cities are not allowed to “deficit-spend.”
Mitchell told the council that they have continued to pass budgets without clearing the deficits of the previous year. He cited years as far back as 2007 when budgets were not balanced before creating new budgets.
“By law, you can’t do this. Every time we do this, we bring up the same thing, and the budgets get passed. Until the city’s deficit gets rectified, we can’t legally pass the budget,” Mitchell explained.
According to the numbers crunched by Mitchell, until December 2009, the city had taken in $910,000 in revenue but had $930,000 in expenditures. These were based on the averages from the previous months because the exact balance for December 2009 had not been made available to the council yet. City bookkeeper Jeri Rainey is the only person with access to the figures for December 2009, and she has been absent from recent meetings because she is recovering from a heart attack she suffered in mid-January.
Mitchell asked Mayor Shirley Johnson whether she had any suggestions about what to do with the budget, and she replied, “No.”
“If the money wasn’t there (in the 2009 budget), then it wasn’t spent,” Johnson said.
Alderman Daisy Hill reminded the mayor that someone had to have spent it because it’s on the records as being spent. Johnson disagreed as Hill continued to speak.
“We have to show where we spent that money. Where did that money come from?” Hill asked. Johson did not have an answer.
The mayor reminded the council of a budget amendment that was proposed in July, but the council did not pass it. The proposed amendment would have increased the city’s revenue to $940,000.
Alderman Michael Huck said the problem is in the lack of paperwork showing how the money has been spent.
Johnson proposed continuing using the 2009 budget until the 2010 budget can be worked out. She suggested extending the 2009 budget until March.
The council approved this, thus extending the 2009 budget until the March 16 meeting of the City Council, with plans of approving the 2010 budget by then.
After agreeing to extend the 2009 budget, Hill asked Alderman Bobbie Finley, head of the budget committee, to organize a meeting so the full council could meet with the budget committee. Finley said the council discussed calling a special meeting in December 2009, but all of the problems seemed “ironed out and no one wanted to call a special meeting.”
Johnson suggested for the council to call members of the budget committee if they have any questions. Hill and the rest of the council were not happy about this idea and Hill continued to insist on a meeting.
Mitchell said if the council does meet with the budget committee, it can’t be until city bookkeeper Rainey is available.
“The mayor or (Rainey) is going to have to be able to answer questions about the budget. If those questions go unanswered, when the legislative audit comes out, that’s where you violate the law,” Mitchell said.
Before the meeting was adjourned, public comment was allowed. Faye McKeon told the council that in 2009, the city had $3,255 in returned checks. She suggested that the council should see when those checks were returned and for what reason.
Bob McKeon addressed the improper posting of the announcement of the meeting. The posting failed to say that the meeting was being held by the City Council, only calling it a “special budget meeting” with no location listed.
“I have people working to find out if this was a legal council meeting,” McKeon added.
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Razorbacks
