Emporia City Commissioners were given a look into what the city’s personnel funds for fiscal year 2021 could look like during their study session Wednesday morning.
City Treasurer Janet Harouff presented the review of how the funds currently stand. She says Wednesday’s review was “as complete as we know it at this point in time.”
Personnel funds include all city funds with salaries in them such as the general, special street, water, sewer and solid waste funds. Harrouff says an exact number of what will be allocated to these funds for the upcoming fiscal year is hard to nail down at this time.
She says a major reason for this uncertainty is the unknown impact COVID-19 will have on city revenues in the coming months.
KVOE has reported in the past there is a significant lag time between when revenues are collected and reported to the city. Harouff also says personnel funds operate in a revolving process meaning revenues provide the funding to cover expenditures.
However, she says at this time certain departments are seeing more expenditures than revenue coming in. She points to the special street fund as an example which is primarily funded by gasoline tax.
Harrouff says the fund has been incurring more expenses than it has had revenue coming in as travel has been down significantly the past two to three months due to COVID-19 restrictions and guidance. As previously mentioned, Harouff stated the funds are as complete as they can be for now, however, she says there is a possibility more adjustments could be coming in the weeks ahead of the official budget deadline.
In other business Wednesday, commissioners received a legislative update from City Attorney Christina Montgomery. The update included an in-depth look at a number of updates from the 2020 Kansas Legislative Session which may have been “of interest or impact” the city of Emporia in some way.
The update included a look at House Bill 2642 regarding unemployment, different grant programs for innovative technologies and broadband services, the annual Kansas Department of Transportation report and much more.
Separately, commissioners also conducted a Capital Improvement Plan review of three city departments, water, sewage and solid waste. The Emporia City Commission will reconvene for an action session next Wednesday at 7 pm inside the Municipal Courtroom at White Auditorium.
