COLUMBIA: Council sees early budget problems
The ink hasn't even begun to dry on the fiscal year 2008-09 budget yet and problems already have surfaced.
At Monday's council meeting, it was announced the city is $62,140 over their projected budget already, which will cause council members to do some serious reallocating of funds."When you have a budget this tight, any unexpected expenses are going to hurt," City Administrator Anthony Traxler said.
The issue came up after Columbia Volunteer Fire Department Chief Mike Roediger gave his monthly address, in which he asked for $10,441 in Foreign Fire Tax revenues he believed had already been allocated.
It seems the money hadn't been approved, although the council agreed the CVFD needed the money.
"We need to do some shifting around to get this money for you," Alderman Jay Unnerstall said.
Traxler also indicated the money for this year's Fourth of July fireworks display-which will run a little over $5,000-isn't readily available.
"We need to figure out what we are going to do about this, either way," Traxler said.
After some suggestions, the council agreed they would borrow the money against their cash reserves to pay for the fireworks.
The juggling of cash has been a trend recently, as the council has been trying to balance a budget that was ailing to begin with.
It was passed at the last minute in late April but only after $545,000 from the city's capitol development fund and $150,000 from the garbage fund were transferred to the general fund to make it look respectable. Even then, the budget was still $20,000 in the red.
Of course, the elephant in the room was the looming lawsuit against the city for breach of contract. While making cuts to various services, the councilmen budgeted $350,000 to fight the lawsuit over the next year.
