For the second year in a row, Little Rock must dip into its contingency funds to adjust and balance the year's budget.
City finance staff members proposed a $2 million budget adjustment to be voted on this week, with almost $850,000 being covered with the contingency money set aside in each year's budget for this purpose. The rest will be met with surplus revenue from various fines, fees, collections or one-time funds.
The budget adjustment comes before the city manager is set to present the Board of Directors with the proposed 2018 budget by the end of this month.
Additional police overtime accounts for $1,254,000 of the 2017 budget adjustment. Fire Department overtime adds another $285,000, and the police recruit incentives that the city started this year in an effort to graduate more cadets from training academies cost $198,175.
Some of that was offset by savings the city realized through personnel vacancies.
Little Rock budgets for all of its positions to be filled, but then -- in order to balance its budget -- relies on the fact that a certain percentage of them won't be filled. If for some reason the city doesn't meet its "vacancy savings goal," there would be a deficit.
Finance Director Sara Lenehan said the city met its vacancy savings goal Sept. 30. The $1,125,000 will offset the police and fire over-budget costs.
The city's general fund is being amended to show an increase of $1,227,440. Property taxes, sales taxes, licenses and permits, zoo fees, false-alarm fees and other charges topped budgeted amounts. But franchise tax collections as well as River Market revenue, 911 service fee reimbursements, War Memorial and Hindman golf revenue, and other fine collections were down.
Several one-time expenses that the city board approved throughout the year caused $1,048,490 in expense adjustments to the 2017 budget.
Such special projects included vehicles and uniforms for the new traffic safety officer program, an extended contract with consultants on the state Department of Transportation's Interstate 30 project, and a study on growth in the city's extraterritorial jurisdiction.
The city also had not budgeted for a contract with the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce for economic development services and had to make up for that.
Other adjustments include golf expenses, which will be paid for with marathon revenue.
In all, the city needs to use $844,225 of its set-aside contingency money to balance the 2017 budget by the end of the year. Little Rock always budgets $1 million in contingency funds each year. If it does not need the money to balance the budget by year's end, the funds go into the city's reserves.
The Board of Directors will vote on whether to OK the proposed budget adjustment at its 6 p.m. meeting Tuesday at City Hall.
Metro on 11/05/2017