08.01.08

Special Finance Committee Meeting called

Posted in City Government at 12:28 am by Moorcat

A Special Finance Committee Meeting has been scheduled for Tuesday, August 5th at 12:00 noon in City Council Chambers. This is in addition to the regulary scheduled Finance Committee Meeting set for the same day at 4:00pm.

The Agenda for the meeting is -

1) Fire Department Excess Expenditures
2) Payments for City Attorney
3) Public Comments on Subjects not on the Agenda

Background

This is actually the first I have heard about the Fire Department exceeding their budget and until I know more about the situation, I am unwilling to comment. The announcement for the meeting did not contain any additional information so I am kind of in the dark on this item - other than it will entail much of the same difficulties as the second item on the agenda.

The issue with Mr. Gilbert was a given. When the budget meetings began back in May, it was already obvious that Mr. Gilbert was going to exceed his budget spectacularly. With May and June’s pay still to go, Mr. Gilbert was already over $1,500.00 over budget. Further, there were still outstanding bills totalling over $5,000.00 for hours Mr. Gilbert worked in excess of 55 hours a month. The amount of money owed Mr. Gilbert overbudget at this point was not disclosed in the meeting message but it has to be in excess of $10,000.00 based on the figures presented during the budget talks.

Mr. Gilbert submitted a request to be paid the outstanding amount to the City Council at the last City Council meeting. I was not in attendance, so I am not sure how much that bill was or what Mr. Gilbert was claiming it was for.

Over budget and Past deadline -

The issues here are simple to describe but seemingly hard to resolve. Montana Law is specific about how a City is required to Budget and spend money. While a City is allowed to NOT spend budgeted money, any money spent OVER budget requires a Budget Amendment. You are allowed to shift money around in a budget account, but you are not allowed to exceed the budgeted amount for an account.

In the case of Mr. Gilbert, they had already shifted money around in his account to pay some of the overages. Unfortunately, Mr. Gilbert submitted hours that exceeded the entire amount for the account. Further, no budget amendment was ever done to address the issue.

To complicate matters, the Budget year ended on July 1, 2008. I have been informed that a City is not allowed to do “retroactive” budget amendments after the fiscal year has ended.

What it will take to resolve this situation is anyone’s guess. In conversations with two seperate accountants, they were unable to suggest a solution that meets the requirements of Montana Municipal Finance Law. Further, any information from Mr. Gilbert is suspect because he stands to financially gain from the decision of the City Council. This is not a small matter and will take some serious consideration to resolve.

Kudos to Councilman Straugh

As I reported yesterday, Mayor Malesich has issued a policy to his office staff that they will no longer send out notifications over the announcement list about Committee Meetings. Apparently, Mr. Straugh made a special request that notification about this meeting be sent out to all the City Council. Further Malesich required that the meeting announcement be sent to Rick Later and Scott Marsh of the Fire Department. Thank you, Councilman Straugh for at least insisting that the meeting announcement be sent to the Council.

Moorcat

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