Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

04/01/2026. No. It is not a joke, folks. We are really here. I'll start off with our roll call. Alder Roman O'Neill? Present. Alderman Thorpe? Present. And I, Alderman Hutley, am also here. Is there a motion to approve the agenda as provided?

Motion to approve agenda.

Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Next up is approval of the minutes from our March 18 meeting. Is there a motion to approve those minutes? So moved. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Beautiful. Motion carries. Okay. Our only, voting item of the day is a fund transfer to capital capital projects for public works. And I gotta tell you, this was a little bit more complicated than, ones we typically see. So, rather than me try and sum it up, Diane, could you just jump right in?

Yes. Sure. Good morning. Diane Doyen, water sewer program manager for the Department of Public Works. This was just handed to me yesterday.

So, if there's any follow-up questions, I'm happy to look into them further. The project manager who's been handling this particular project is on maternity leave and is anticipated to return early this month. So the city is currently in the process of developing our standard specifications and details that would be used by engineers and contractors doing work in the city. Our specs and details were last updated in 1988, So they're pretty outdated, and we are constantly getting requests, for them. So we're trying to get up to speed on this.

We've done some work on them so far, and we were waiting for Anne Arundel County to finish their update so that would make it a little easier. We wouldn't have to be starting from the beginning. We could kind of pattern off of what they've done. We do a lot of things similar to them, but not everything. So looking at the, budget revision request that I got ahold of yesterday, it seems it's written the way it's written is a little confusing to me as well.

What we're asking for is transferring $25,000 from each of the enterprise funds of water, sewer, and storm water, for a total of $75,000. In the explanation, I see it says storm water twice, so I don't know if that's something that was confusing to all of you.

One of those is just wastewater. Right?

Correct.

Correct. So, I mean, that's that's basically it in a nutshell, and, you know, I can try to answer any specific questions.

So maybe this the question is really more for mister Palakol. I think I understand what is happening here in a goal oriented sense. What I'm a little bit confused by is how we're moving the money around and why there are if we are really trying to transfer $75,000, there's essentially a $150,000 of transfers in front of us. Are we having to move it twice? Can can Joel, mister Chavalkov, could you explain that, Manny?

Yeah. Alderman Huntley, happy to take it. So I think this is a product more of a limitation of the document, because of the nature of how many transfers there are in the journal entries on the debits and credits. There was an effort to consolidate it, and it likely made it more confusing than helpful. I think in the future, we will include maybe a supplemental sheet that if the accounting were to be more complex than it is today, then more complex than can be allowed by the document itself, we would incorporate that.

The movements that are happening are intended to meet the 75,000 as, Diane described. It just, I think it it was definitely a field limitation because when you think about it, the monies were already allocated down at specific budget line items within the enterprise funds. And so the movement is to come up from those line items to the fund itself, then out to the general fund, then from the general fund down to the CIP budget. It's just a lengthy debit and crediting process between all three funds. And so recognize that this could be confusing, but the intent was to display exactly that.

Okay. I think I'm starting to get what you're describing. So we're we're yeah. You're doing

both the revenue and the expenditure side in some sense is is maybe the shorthand way of doing that, which is why it looks doubled.

I'm sorry. What was the first word there? You said from the something and the It's you're

you're hitting both revenue and expenditures. So in some sense, you're you're moving both rev both an acknowledgment of right. Because you're you've got a transfer so that transfer hits both the revenue side and budget on the expenditure side.

I think I get what you're saying.

So it looks doubled, but it's not. Yeah. But be cut to Joel's point, because we don't actually on the in this form and, Joel, this is something we might wanna think about in terms of changing the form because we don't actually show what the, what the object code is. It's hard to tell when we're talking about which kind of bucket of things. We're talking about revenue side, we're talking about expenditure side, or or what.

So if if I try and walk through this line by line, tell somebody jump in and tell me if I'm saying it wrong. The first one is we have money in stormwater contract services. We are taking that out of stormwater contract services up to the general stormwater account or fund, I should say. General stormwater fund. Then we're transferring that to stormwater capital projects. Is that right? With the still within the stormwater fund. Okay. And then we're taking it out of the general stormwater fund, right, and putting it into construction standard specs and construction detail, which is a CIP item. Right?

Yes. I principally, you are speaking it correctly. Okay. Thing I want to just one thing I just wanna double check on my side is whether or not it actually leaves the enterprise fund to the general fund because it's an allocation to the general fund's CIP. I think that's the piece of it that's a little harder to see through on. And that that that those would be even additional more additional entries to then get from there to there to down to down. So it's an up, up, up across down, down, down. Okay.

Yeah. Okay. I I feel like I am understanding this enough. Not necessarily 100%, but enough that I feel comfortable with it. Happy to turn it over to either of my colleagues if they have questions.

No? Nothing? Okay. Let me just ask. So we're taking money out of these so the stormwater contract services out of water distribution rehab, sewer rehab. These are important things. What do we think is not going to get done because we're pulling this money out of those? What would have gotten done otherwise?

I don't think that it'll have a big effect on our projects.

Okay. Okay. That's fine. I'll maybe next time we have a meeting and we have the person back from maternity leave, maybe we could ask that in a little more detail. But, yes, I appreciate that, Diane. It's not going to cause some catastrophic issue. But

No. No. No. It's it's a it's a relatively small amount for Yeah. You know, compared to what our projects are.

Alright. Seeing no additional question, is there a motion for a favorable recommendation of this?

I'll move to give a favorable recommendation for sorry.

Second?

F t seven twenty six.

Thank you. And I think I heard a second from Alderman Thorpe. All those in favor of a favorable recommendation for F t seven twenty six, please say aye. Aye. Alright. Thank you for being here, miss Doyen. Appreciate you pinch hitting on that.

Sure. No problem. Thank you.

Okay. Budget schedule discussion. I hope this is fairly short, but we had our budget schedule that, big thanks all to Ruben O'Neil for putting that together. Unless you guys really have anything new you wanna talk about or if the city manager has something to jump in and tell us there's a problem with it or miss Jackson does for that matter. I was planning on just voting on this.

So there are there are a couple of things that I wanted to to flag. I don't see a time for parking.

You mean the parking fund?

Williams Jewel. I I don't see I don't see transportation.

Oh, that would be a problem if we missed the transportation department.

Yeah.

Oh, we had transportation in there.

Good catch. I'm not seeing them right now either.

And

Yep. So I think we could add them to the end of either Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday of the first week.

No. We can't.

No. We can't. Okay.

Because that adds another hour in my request to only have two hours.

Sure. Okay. What about adding them to the oh, no. Tuesday is also a long one because we're doing all of DPW that day. I mean, we could well I

mean, you have you have some time set aside on the Monday and Tuesday of week three for people to come back.

Yeah.

You could grab one of those that might that might be easier. So I wanted to flag that.

That's important. Thank you.

The second thing was then we have this joint session with the financial advisory commission on the thirtieth. And my assumption there is that that typically, we've had, Davenport come in. We obviously, you have time for STANTech, but we've had Davenport come in to talk about debt affordability. I'm assuming that that is when we'll do that session?

Yes. That was my plan. And it this is listed on here as CIP debt affordability and other budget related items. But I think, really, we should break it up into debt affordability, which is the main thing members of the fact care about and which we want to have import there for. And then we can launch once we start with the understanding the debt affordability, then we could do the capital improvement program afterwards, meaning in the same session, but, you know, second in the

session. Okay.

Because then the guys from Davenport don't have to stick around, and some of the folks from the fact might wanna depart also.

Okay. Okay. I just wanted to make sure as we do our outreach to Davenport that we're flagging the correct day and time for that.

So I think the correct day and time for that would be 5PM on April 30.

Okay. We've, we've had some discussion about doing a little bit of just background information. So for the CIP, if we just devote that whole day, in some sense, there's a little bit of of training that's there. If we've got, you know, new council members who want, you know, for that work session who wanna to sit in. As we talk with Davenport, do you want us to ask them to give a little bit more background information since this will be the first time for some of our our council members that they're kinda dealing with this about just, what do we when we're when we're looking at capital projects, like, what what does this whole debt affordability mean?

Absolutely. Yeah. And I I was, kinda prompting director Vogel when we had a session at council meeting, whatever the last council meeting was about the

That I I missed. Because some

of that. Yep. Yes. You should feel terrible about it.

Before you visit my

parents. Yes.

But, yeah, I was sort of prompting director Vogel to give some of those basics as a primer in that meeting. So I think having Davenport do it would be good, potentially also on at the work session on the sixteenth where the mayor walks through the budget. That could also be a helpful place to do that, but I imagine there's some that you want Davenport specifically to do. And so it makes sense to have that part be on the thirtieth.

Okay. Okay. If those were the main things that I had noticed, we've got time for community grants. We've we've talked about doing, I know we've had some there's been interest in the past about doing some changes, and we've had some conversations, about that. So, in the past, we had set aside a whole day.

I think doing the the half day is probably fine. So, if I see anything else, I'll flag that for you guys. But those were the things that, and and kudos to Joel. He he was the one who actually had flagged the transportation item. I had missed that. So, Joel Joel is the one who gets the gold star on that one.

Well Sorry about that.

Yeah. Oh, no. Thank thank I think, you only deserve thanks on the road on y'all for putting together the schedule for us, and we'll figure out where makes no sense to add transportation. K.

Yeah. I think that we could add transportation into the Monday, '54 date. Sure. So we could do an 11:20 to 12:20 12:20.

Yep. Yeah. That sounds great.

In that way, then we just have Tuesday for anybody that needs to come back in thirty minute intervals, and then we'll start our final discussions.

Yep. And, transportation is better hope that they don't, they don't have too much they have to come back with the following day. They're gonna have a short window to turn around if we want them to come back, but they'll figure it out. Okay. So, essentially, we're gonna we're gonna seek transportation in here at 11:20 on Monday, the fourth, May 4. So any any anybody got any other discussion or concerns with this schedule? No? Seeing none? Alright. Is there a motion to approve this schedule with the addition of transportation on May 4?

I make a motion to approve this schedule, with amendments.

Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Beautiful. We've got our schedule set. And, of course, as, we've had in the past, you know, if if something comes up and a couple departments need to switch or something, we can understand that. Just please keep the, the council the committee informed. Alright. Last thing we got That's good. Oh, yeah. Question. Yeah. Yeah.

We also discussed that we were going to request that the department send their presentations at least seventy two hours prior to their presentation time and date. Can we make sure that

bring that up.

Yep. I can signify that. Yes.

Thank you.

And I know, miss Buckland, you sent us a template of the slides. I have not had a chance to discuss that with the other members of the committee and get back to you on what we think of it. I know it it definitely incorporated a bunch of the things we had discussed. So thank you for that. But we'll get back to you on it quickly.

Okay. Moving ahead to update for the finance department. Mister Palakol, what you got for us? How are things going over there?

Oh, things are going really well. We've, you know, I continue to need to work on the request for more financial information. As you all know, we're just heavily in the budget phase of time right now, and we're marching towards our deadlines. And so feeling good that we're in the right lockstep to achieve the April 13 date. We continue to meet with the team and progress forward.

Outside of that, the finance team continues to bolster its documentation and other things as we are responding to the changes in leadership and turnover. And so, the team continues to strengthen and increase its customer service to internal and external stakeholders. So I think a lot of positives to report out of the finance department, not specific numbers, but the goal is to bring that and start formulating what that reporting can look like, once we get through this budget timeline. I'll pass to Vicky for any updates regarding staffing. And

Yeah. The we are in the interviewing process for the finance director. That post enclosed. We will finish my level of interviews this week, and pass, those finalists off to the mayor then for a final selection. I know that he's pretty focused on that, so I think you guys will will see, something fairly soon.

Obviously, we've we've got a lot of hiring going on in general, but that is progressing well, and we seem to have some good some good candidates. So I'm I'm happy about that.

Wonderful. I know and appreciate that developing the budget is top priority right now. One of the things that we've talked about in previous finance meetings was getting the quarterly budget versus actuals, and we're on day one of q four now. Any update on when we can expect those budget versus actuals for '26?

We, we haven't prepared their internal review. I think I think, Vicky, miss Buckland, if I can connect with you after this, we can figure out the appropriate time to

Yeah. Actually, in in this in this case, I'm actually the one the holdup. So that's actually I will be sending that to you later later today.

Okay. Great. Thank you. Wonderful. That's all my questions. Anybody got any other questions? Alderman Thorpe, Alderman O'Neill? No? Keeping it light and breezy today, like the weather outside. Alright. With that, is there a motion to adjourn? So moved. I think I saw your lips move to say second. So alright. With that, we're adjourned. Thanks, everybody.

Thank you, guys.