Iola makes do without transfers

By

News

December 23, 2015 - 12:00 AM

Iola looks as if it will be able to avoid having to transfer additional funds from its utility reserves into the general fund this year, City Administrator Carl Slaugh told the Register Tuesday.
The year-end transfers are normally a routine event to ensure no line items in the city’s budget contain negative balances. Typically, those transfers involve replenishing the city’s general fund.
However, City Council members — at Slaugh’s urging — declined to do any such transfers because of low reserve levels.
For example, Iola had about $1 million in its electric fund, much lower than Slaugh’s comfort level.
For years utility funds have been used to supplement the city’s general fund as a means to keep Iola’s property taxes lower than they otherwise would be.
 This year included some big-ticket transfers out of the electric fund already, to pay for EPA-mandated upgrades to control systems in the city’s electric plant, plus another $200,000 to improve electric service to accommodate a yet-to-occur expansion at Gates Coproration.
Since October, Slaugh has directed Iola’s department superintendents to curb their spending, approving only “emergency” expenditures.
“It’s not a formal thing,” he said. “It was just a way of allowing me to control spending, because our budget’s so tight. It’s had some effect, but the biggest part of our budget is still payroll. And we’re still able to make payroll.”
The spending limitations likely will be in effect through mid-January, Slaugh said.
“We’ll stay in the black,” he said. “It’s going to be tight, but we thought we could work within our existing budget, and we have. In some ways, it would have been easier to have done a budget amendment (and pull additional funds out of the reserves) but we decided we could still get by.”
As a reminder, the Iola Council will not meet next week for its second meeting of the month because several members were unavailable. The next Council meeting is Jan. 11.

Related
January 13, 2015
July 21, 2012
December 13, 2011
July 21, 2011