Report Prepared by: Venus Rodriguez, Finance Officer
Title
SUBJECT: Mid-Year Budget Review for Fiscal Year 2018-2019 Including Requests for Approval of General Fund Supplemental Appropriations and Budget Amendments in Various Funds Totaling $58,000, Approval of an Additional Administrative Analyst Position in the Public Works Division and the Deletion of an Account Clerk III Position in the Public Works Division
REPORT IN BRIEF
Presents the Fiscal Year 2018-2019 Mid-Year Financial Report and seeks approval for General Fund Supplemental Appropriations and Budget Amendments in Various Funds totaling $58,000, approval to add an additional Administrative Analyst position in the Public Works Division and to delete an Account Clerk III position in the Public Works Division
RECOMMENDATION
City Council - Adopt a motion:
A. Approving a Supplemental Appropriation from the unreserved, unencumbered General Fund balance in the amount of $28,000; and,
B. Approving a Supplemental Appropriation from the unreserved, unencumbered General Fund balance in the amount of $30,000, transferring to Fund 424 Parks and Community Services Capital Improvement Projects and appropriating the same; and,
C. Approving the addition of a Administrative Analyst position in Fund 029 Public Works Administration; and,
D. Approving the deletion of an Account Clerk III position in Fund 029 Public works Administration.
Body
ALTERNATIVES
1. Approve, as recommended; or
2. Approve, subject to other than recommended (identify specific findings and/or conditions amended to be addressed in the motion; or
3. Deny; or
4. Continue to a future meeting (date and time to be specified in the motion).
AUTHORITY
Charter of the City of Merced, Section 1105
DISCUSSION
The purpose of this agenda item is to provide the City Council with a reconciliation on how the City ended Fiscal Year 2018-19, a General Fund update for the current Fiscal Year 2019-20, and to request changes to the budget due to needs that have been identified since the budget was adopted on June 18, 2018.
Beginning Fund Balance July 1, 2018
The table below reflects the Fiscal Year 18-19 adopted budget assumptions compared to actual fund balance at June 30, 2018.
Fund |
FY 2018-19 Actual Beginning Balance |
FY 2018-19 Beginning Budget Balance |
Savings or (Deficit) |
General Fund |
$9,608.925 |
$8,022,598 |
$1,586,327 |
Development Services |
$1,343,171 |
$ 309,689 |
$1,033,482 |
Parks & Community Services |
$ 0 |
$ 0 |
$ 0 |
Airport |
$ 56,215 |
$ 51,438 |
$ 4,777 |
Measure C |
$1,523,560 |
$1,551,428 |
$ (27,868) |
Fiscal Year 2018-19
The City Council adopted the Fiscal Year 2018-19 budget for all funds on June 18, 2018. Subsequent to the budget adoption, there have been several actions approved by the City Council that affected the budget.
General Fund Expenditures
The City Council has approved revenue increases of $100,462 with equal offsetting expenditures. In addition, there has been $566,655 in Supplemental Appropriations for the following:
Interim City Attorney Contract $ 57,000
Applegate Park Playground Equipment 168,755
Entry Sign Consultant 15,900
Workers Compensation Transfer 325,000
Total $566,655
MID-YEAR RECOMMENDATIONS
General Fund Supplemental Appropriations:
City Council
The City Clerk’s office recently received the ability to provide the City Council meeting agendas to staff and City Council members through the software application ilegislate. In order to take advantage of the ilegislate application, users must download and view the agenda on an iPad. The Mid-Year General Fund supplemental appropriation request is $8,000, which will cover initial costs to purchase and set up seven iPads for all Council Members. Ongoing annual costs for the iPads, which will need to be added to future budgets is $6,200. Since this will require a lot less printing, staff estimates the savings to be up to $2,000 per year. It will also save staff time since they will no longer need to deliver the agenda packets to City Council members. The iPads could also be used for other City business functions including e-mail, making notes, etc.
Public Work-Parks
The Parks Division would like to replace and/or repair play equipment in three City Parks. The repairs are estimated to cost $31,000, of which $11,000 is available within the fiscal year 2018-19 adopted budget. The requested General Fund supplemental appropriation of $20,000 will provide the funding shortfall to replace the slide and roofing at Stephan Gray Min Park, replace the missing crawl tube at Old Fahrens Park, and replace the missing tube slide at Columbia Park.
Parks and Community Services
Due to recent break-ins at the zoo, Parks and Community Services would like to install CCTV security cameras that are viewable in real time by the Police Department for increased monitoring and security. The General Fund supplemental appropriation of $30,000 will cover the cost of the cameras and necessary infrastructure to make the camera feeds viewable at the Police Department. One camera will be located near the front gate to capture entrance into the zoo. The second camera will be located inside the zoo gift shop and the last camera will be located near an enclosure to provide video coverage of the parking lot, gift shop and barn entrance where the last break-in occurred.
Total General Fund Supplemental Appropriations
iPads for City Council $ 8,000
Park Improvements 20,000
Cameras for the Parks 30,000
Total $ 58,000
Public Works Administration Positions:
The Public Works Department is in the process of restructuring the administrative staff duties to better accommodate the changing workload and more complex tasks needed to run the day-to-day operations. Therefore, the Public Works Department is requesting to remove a vacant Account Clerk III position and to add an Administrative Analyst position. The Account Clerk III position is limited in scope. The change to an Administrative Analyst will allow the department flexibility in adapting to the broader range of tasks necessary to perform the core duties.
The estimated annual cost of an Account Clerk III is $64,900. The estimated annual cost of an Administrative Analyst is $90.865. Due to salary savings in the current budget year, Public Works Administration can absorb the increase in cost for the Administrative Analyst if filled before the end of the Fiscal Year. In Fiscal Year 2019-20 and beyond, if this personnel request is approved, it is likely the restructuring will eliminate an additional position in Public Works, which will ultimately create a savings in the long term.