2013-0917 Special City Commission Meeting - 1st Budget Hrg

Home Browse Search

Summary Minutes:Special City Commission Meeting September 17.2013 Sunny Isles Beach.Florida First Budget Hearing are pictures to show us the primary increases and decreases in the various budgets from year to year, and they don't vary from what was discussed in your workshops and what the City Manager has highlighted today. Finance Director Curts-Whann said starting on page 40 is a Summary of all of the revenues and there are no significant changes in the revenue projections that were made between the workshops and now except in one fund and that was in the Capital Projects Fund. We felt one of the revenue estimates was slightly optimistic and we brought it down a little bit, and if it does better we will make an amendment during the year and put it back at those levels. Finance Director Curts-Whann said the other thing that she wanted to point out is at the very back of the book in the Capital Projects Section on page C4. This also gives you a much better picture of what the current budgeted projects are being added to the budget versus carry forwards from past years. So again, this is a different presentation then you have seen in the past. If you look in the second section which is the Appropriation section,the projects that are listed in a row up top or first, are the newly budgeted for additional amounts given to those projects for the year. The second to the last line says "Estimated Project Carryovers from Prior Year". Those are the multi-year projects where in the past you have appropriated for all of the various parks and things that are going on right now and those dollar amounts are the amounts that we expect to carry forward that we think will not be expended by September 30, 2014. It gives the reader a picture of our carry forwards which again we have never had in the past because we have never shown the carry forward projects this way before. Public Speakers: None Mayor Edelcup asked the Finance Director to enlighten the Commission on the Accrual Process for next year. Finance Director Curts-Whann said that currently the City for many years have operated completely on a cash basis,cash basis meaning the only thing that shows in your Quarterly Financials is the money that came in and the money that went out. Expected revenues are not shown, or what we call accrual, expected expenditures are not shown. We are hoping, effective October 1, 2013, to modify the way we do that and the things that are known or can be reasonably estimated, we are going to move to what we call a Modified Accrual Basis. We are going to try to show you more rounded, so that you have apples to apples from year to year where you are going to end up. There are big swings,ups and downs, where certain revenues only come in once a year so you will have this big huge hit in one or two months and then nothing the rest of the year. Sometimes those are the same from year to year and sometimes they are not. So we are going to smooth it out for you and show you over the course of a year based on accrual accounting where you really are. You are going to see some visual changes because we are upgrading New World or working toward different financial reporting the way it comes out of your accounting system. Assistant Finance Director Tiffany Neely-Jean is here as well and she is the one that is doing the technical side of getting these reports put together. We are going to make some changes and we hope they will be pleasing changes to the Commission, things that will give you more information. things that will help you understand what is happening throughout the year better. Commissioner Scholl asked how do cities report, cash or accrual? Finance Director Curts- Whann said they are mixed, and City Manager Russo said he can answer that from his 4