Special Board of Aldermen 6-13-2022 Page 9
the Country, what guardrails do we have that we say we have to include capital projects, or we don’t have to include?
Do we have to include enterprise funds or we don’t? Is there some metric, or some guideline that we can point to, or
can we sort of pick and choose how we would like to?
Steve Bolton, Corporation Counsel
| think the Municipal Budget Act has something to be said on what the budget is.
John Griffin, CFO/Treasurer/Tax Collector
Madam President and other members of the Board, this certainly very descriptive, detailed requirements on the proper
municipal accounting. This is an off book calculation that somebody was interested in making. That’s why when it
passed, me being a kind of practical person | said who is in charge? Who was actually going to tell us how this should
be constructed? Fortunately | had Attorney Bolton and Mayor Donchess and they said read this very literally and
present. It’s not even in the budget book because all the accounting is proper in there. It’s literally a calculation that
folks decided through Charter amendments and so forth are proper. So what | want to explain to everybody here,
don’t worry about the accounting. We've got like 15 years of unmodified opinions. We've got AAA bond ratings.
We've got an excellent presentation of our information. This is like one paragraph in the official statement of the City
and maybe even the GFO submittal to get the Award for Excellence on Financial Reporting. So you’re not going to
find it. You’re not going to be able to call anybody up at the DRA and talk to them about it because there’s a lot of tax
caps and spending caps.
Now | come from Massachusetts where good, bad, or indifferent where we had Proposition 2 1/2 back in 1982.
Extremely prescriptive, but a lot of outs. So here we’re just trying to take the best information we can and craft a
budget. But if | thought for one minute that anything in here was going to effect the accounting of the City, | gota
problem with that.
Alderman Cathey
Thank you. | appreciate that Mr. Griffin. | was just curious because as Aldermen | know a little bit about accounting
but not enough to know the rules and regulations of how these budgets are put together so | appreciate that.
To clarify an earlier statement | believe it was Mayor Donchess. The Ordinances that we used to have that were
related to the spending cap, those Ordinances no longer exist and/or apply to our current situation. Am |
understanding that correctly?
Mayor Donchess
As | understand it, they no longer apply because the Legislature said you have to go by the Charter language only and
you cannot alter it, interpret it, or modify it by an Ordinance.
Alderman Cathey
We can’t alter the spending cap Ordinance?
Mayor Donchess
Correct.
Alderman Cathey
Two questions, kind of together. One - I’m guess why we would include grants only because | don’t see them as
expenditure. | see them as revenue and even when we spend them now, it’s sort of like we’re the conduit for how the
federal or State government is spending money so it’s not really us.
And then two, wastewater is funded by users fees so how does that play in? That’s not necessarily | guess related to
expenditures because we’re getting revenue in to cover the cost of what we’re spending. So how do those two things
factor into the budget and how they apply to the cap when | feel like the cap is supposed to constrain us from
spending taxpayer money and grant money and wastewater money is not that. At least to my understanding, but |
could be incorrect.
