Plain City officials are planning to look at the way they prepare budgets for the village.
At Plain City Village Council’s meeting Monday night, the group tabled a pair of motions that would move revenue into funds based on the village’s approved percentage model.
Currently, by rule, the budgets for many village departments are set by a percentage of village revenue coming from general property tax, real property rollback payments, cigarette tax receipts, liquor and beer permit fees, unrestricted municipal income tax, cable franchise fees, interest earnings, local government fund revenues and court fines. According to the formula previously approved, the police department is to receive 34.74 of village revenue, the streets department to get 16.11 percent, the park fund to receive 2.5 percent and the pool is to get 0.5 percent.
Last month, Fiscal Officer Renee Sonnett said revenue for this year is exceeding estimates by about $130,000. As such, a resolution to add the money to the departments, based on the percentage, was prepared.
A second resolution, one to continue the practice of moving funds into or out of those department funds based on revenue percentages was also introduced. Council voted to table both Monday.
Council members asked for more information about the practice. The method was contemplated in 2014 and the 2015 budget was prepared using the percentages. Village Administrator Nathan Cahall explained the budget was tight and all departments were asking for more money. At the time, officials said the traditional method of each department preparing a budget request could create an adversarial relationship between departments.
The percentage-based budgeting guaranteed department heads their budgets would increase as revenues did. It also gave council an equitable way to treat departments if revenue fell short of expectations.
Cahall said having the percentage-based budget was akin to putting it “on cruise control.”
He said the method eliminated much of the flexibility council had to make funding decisions, but it also eliminated many of the difficult decisions and conversations.
“The way this is written right now, it is just an automatic authorization,” the administrator said.
Cahall said he was not here when the process began and “would not be what I would recommend.”
Council asked what would happen to excess money if the percentage-based funding is not approved. Cahall said it would simply go into the village general fund. He said council could then move money after looking at individual funds as well as projected needs
“You might look at projections and say, ‘This fund is looking a little lean three years out,’ and look at another funs and say, ‘This one is getting a little fat.’”
He said by eliminating the percentage mandate, it allows council to prioritize departments and individual projects.
Council agreed to discus the percentages specifically as well as the method philosophically at the Jan 9, 2019, work session.
In other news:
- Cahall said the village has received bad news from the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT). He said there is “a major adverse development” regarding next year’s pavement project on Route 161. He said there was an error in the spreadsheet system used by ODOT. He said he learned of the issue when the village received an invoice from ODOT that was “substantially more” than $55,000, which is the amount ODOT had initially said the village would be responsible for.
Cahall said the Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) budget has money that “can be shifted around to accommodate that amount without throwing us off our larger plan.”
He said he and Sonnett had gone over the project and CIP budget and were suggesting changes that could be made “without changing the overall CIP amount.”
He added that before bringing the suggestions to council, he wanted the village’s CIP committee to review the changes and “weigh in on that.” - Council approved the third reading of an ordinance to authorize financing a new municipal building. Council approved borrowing up to $4 million for the building. Council member Darren Lane voted against the measure. When the ordinance was first presented, Lane asked for more information, including getting a breakdown of costs, mentioning construction, furnishings and information technologies.
Cahall said village officials had spoken with the architect repeatedly, but “we are still waiting on that.” Sonnett said that breakdown is expected by Jan. 10 when all bid documents are due.
Lane asked if there would be a problem waiting to pass the third reading until after that breakdown is received. Cahall said a delay in passing the financing would mean a delay in bidding and in construction. He said that delay could impact pricing because the project construction might be out of season.
He said this is just the first step and council will have other opportunities to weigh in on the project details and pricing.