Months of budget cuts and adjustments now in place
By Barb Pert Templeton
At a recent Marine City Commission meeting, City Manager Scott Adkins explained some budget amendments to officials. Adkins said he spent a lengthy time with Treasurer/Finance Director Katy Posey going over the numbers and he concurred with the amendments.
“As you all know it’s been a very difficult time in moving forward on our recently adopted budget for next year,” Adkins said, noting a lot of time had been spent on adjusting things in order to address the deficit issue in the year that will end on June 30.
At a June 18 meeting, he said many items are items that have previously been addressed by the commission and approved and in some instances, contracts or agreements are already in place.
“It is a daunting amount however I believe the numbers are in check and appropriate and correct as presented,” Adkins said. “This does go along with the conversations we’ve had many times on your budget preparations for next year and why we have quite a few things to address going forward.”
Marine City Manager Scott Adkins.
Adkins said a lot of the capitol items are larger amounts and several of those are generally bonds or grants and carry expenses that have already been approved by the commission.
“At this point in the calendar, the 18th of June, the items you see reflected here have generally already been paid so this is a procedural step to make sure we conform to all the auditing
requirements and general accounting practices,” Adkins said.
Mayor Pro Tem Lisa Hendrick asked if all the adjustments are being put into the old budget so they can get a copy of it and it’s all up to date as the city moves forward. Adkins said yes, they will have a document with a comparison of the previous budget year with the current one.
Commissioner Rita Roehrig said she sees nine pages of budget amendments in front of her and she recalled some time ago the administration had agreed to bring amendments in a timelier matter.
“I find it difficult to accept that every one of these amendments had to be held until the close of the fiscal year, seeing these amendments earlier could have helped us in making better decisions on spending and on improving the next budget,” Roehrig said. “I intend to raise this at future meetings until the practice changes, sitting on amendments until the end is not fiscally responsible and it’s not being transparent.”
Marine City Commissioner Rita Roehrig posed some questions to the city manager related to budget amendments at a June 18 meeting. Roehrig is pictured here on the left seated next to Mayor Pro Tem Lisa Hendrick.
“Bi-monthly (reporting) would be the perfect world and quarterly should be the standard on these and she (treasurer) does concur,” Adkins said.
Roehrig then posed some specific questions about several entries listed in the budget. The first was a miscellaneous charge for $44,240 on page two, the commission page.
Adkins said before he addressed that specific charge, he wanted to say that in talking to the city treasurer, he heard that many of the items had been held and not even presented to her because of some contracts in process and project change orders.
He then explained that some items are placed in miscellaneous because they don’t have a category to place them in and that he can provide a list of what those are soon.
“That’s fine, just a general idea of what miscellaneous is,” Roehrig said.
Adkins also provided the clarification that the line item for $44,240 under miscellaneous on the commission page was for insurance payouts for the claims for flooding. He said the budget didn’t have a section for that so it was placed under miscellaneous.
“I find it difficult to accept that every one of these amendments had to be held until the close of the fiscal year, seeing these amendments earlier could have helped us in making better decisions on spending and on improving the next budget. I intend to raise this at future meetings until the practice changes, sitting on amendments until the end is not fiscally responsible and it’s not being transparent.”
Marine City Commissioner Rita Roehrig
“So that’s the settlement amount that was approved,” Adkins said.
“That makes perfect sense, thank-you,” Roehrig replied.
The other line item she asked about was a health insurance charge on the general administration page; the budget reflected an under estimated amount of $3,517 which just seemed more than most of the other entries.
“There are a couple likely answers to that and I’ll verify those,” Adkins said, noting they had some payouts and they had some changes in an employee’s status such as they got married and added their spouse to the policy.
“Okay, that makes sense,” Roehrig replied.
Her final question was directed to page seven in the budget which was the section on the city cemetery. The entry was that full-time employees went up $7,600 and part-time employees was reduced by $4,950 and Roehrig asked what was going on there.
Adkins replied that a part-time employee was moved up to full-time and an additional employee was hired.
The commission then unanimously approved Resolution 016-2026 – Budget Amendments FY25/26.
