BY TRACY LEE TATE
Times Staff Writer
LAKE BUTLER — The Lake Butler City Commission heard the first reports concerning the city’s financial position from Interim City Manager Richard Tillis at its regular March 21 meeting.
In his report to the commission Tillis said he was starting to make sense of the financial reports and working on locating the various moneys in the current budget document.
“I have been chasing numbers ever since I got here,” Tillis said, “as well as looking closely at all expenditures in an effort to save money. Everything is all mixed together in the budget. I believe that all grant moneys need to go in their own special funds, not mixed in with other types of funds and balances. Right now all of the funds are mixed together in the operating budget. That inflates the budget, making the bottom line hard to determine and keep a clear picture of costs and how much has been spent. I am working on separating the grant monies out into their own funds, based on source and type as appropriate.”
Tillis said he has been working with City Finance Director John Sapp on tracking various income streams and accounting for expenses. He has also met with city engineers from Mittauer and auditors from Powell and Jones. Tillis said that the city is lucky to have both of these firms as resources and he plans on working closely with them in the future.
On the subject of utility bills, Tillis said he is working on several issues that will take care of many of the current problems and increase citizen satisfaction with the city services. One procedure he has implemented is to do a test run on the month’s billing several days before the bills are generated. If a customer’s projected bill is overly large the city will send someone out to check the meter, including comparing the physical reading with the amount transmitted to city hall, and then, if a difference is found, check that the transmitter is functioning properly, as the transmitters are known to go out sporadically. If meter work is needed, the customer may receive a bill that is an average of the charges for the past six months, rather than a large bill in error.
Tillis noted that one of the problems with the current rate structure on water bills is the fact that there is no allotment of water to go along with a customer’s minimum monthly bill payment.
“The city used to have an allotment of 2,000 gallons as part of a customer’s minimum bill,” Tillis said. “The new rates do not include an allotment. Now, customers are paying for water from the first gallon used as well as the minimum bill associated with having an active account. ”
Acting Mayor Annette Redman told the board that she had been talking with Tillis about adjusting the rates and was told that he hoped to have a new proposed rate structure to commissioners by the May meeting.
“The current system is making things difficult for many of our residents,” Redman said. “We have quite a few residents on fixed and limited incomes and the fluctuations and increases in bills are making it really hard on them to budget for the monthly bills in advance and to pay them month to month. ”
Tillis said that his current priority is determining the city’s cash position in all of its funds so the board will know where it stands financially and can formulate a plan for getting things back on track. He hopes to have both the special forensic audit requested by the city and the regular annual audit completed by the auditors and ready for presentation to the board at its regular April meeting.
“Once we have all the numbers straightened out we will know where we are,” Tillis said. “It won’t be pleasant. It took a couple of years to get where we are now, and it is going to take some time to understand but we need to get there so we can realistically know what we can do and what we need to do. There will be some budget amendments in May to get us back where we need to be for the fiscal year. ”
In other business, Tillis requested that the commission vote to hire an interim public works director to handle the department on a temporary basis in light of the resignation of the previous director, Cody Banks. He requested the board to approve the hiring of the previous director, Mike Banks, at an hourly rate with no benefits to get the department back on track and assist him (Tillis) with the financial morass connected with the new public works building. The board approved the request unanimously.
Tillis also asked the board to approve a one-time mowing of the spray field to allow him time to look into a more permanent solution to the issue and bring it before the board, which was also unanimously approved.
He said he was still working on tracking the ARPA funds the city had earmarked for lift station construction and, while he said he did not yet have all the figures he could tell the board that “a good bit” had been spent – more specific details to be ready by May. He is also dealing with issues concerning animal control, uniforms for city workers and locating paperwork for various contracts entered into for work that were in some cases never brought before the board and in others seem to have never been written down but of a verbal nature. He has also created a procedure in which all purchasing must be done with a purchase order approved by him and is working to eliminate all payments made by the city through electronic fund transfers.
Tillis admitted to the board that there was still a great deal to be done before the city will know with any surety where it stands financially and what can be done to remediate any problems. He said that he and city staff were working hard to figure things out, but that the problems have to be identified before any solutions could even begin to be formulated.
