SELMA – The Selma City Council, unhappy with a general fund deficit caused by budget requests it made, has delayed the adoption of its final budget until other expenses can be amended.
The council held a public hearing on June 17 with the intention of adopting the final budget ahead of the new fiscal year; however, council members brought up additional changes they want to see in the budget before they approve it. Considering the city must adopt its budget ahead of June 30, the last day before fiscal year 2025-26 begins, the council will need to revisit the item at another special meeting.
“Looking at a couple of the items, I was thinking we could make some changes on this and bring this budget back if we need to,” Mayor Scott Robertson said.
One of the main concerns brought up by Robertson was a deficit in the general fund, with budgeted expenses totaling more than budgeted revenues. He pointed out that during the May 28 budget proposal, the general fund was estimated to have a small surplus of $133, and questioned why the budget brought forward for adoption then had a deficit of about $61,000.
Finance Director Maggie Moreno said this was because of the additional items the council requested following the May 28 presentation provided by city staff. This included an additional $10,000 for senior center services, $1,500 to support the recreation department and the Selma Live event and a $50,000 allocation to the Downtown Business Improvement District.
The $61,000 deficit does not mean the city would have a negative general fund balance, however; thanks to existing reserves, the ending balance of the general fund would be upwards of $14 million.
“We don’t mean to inconvenience you,” Robertson said to Moreno, “but these are some material issues here, and when we go from a surplus to a deficit, you kind of catch our attention. And it’s not you, but it’s just the numbers here that are speaking to us and telling us that we have to do our job as fiduciaries for the city and do our review.”
In order to keep the added items while still maintaining a positive operating budget, Robertson proposed that city staff look at removing the funds for a few different staff positions, including a part-time grants manager and the animal services director.
Instead of the part-time grants manager, which is budgeted for $30,000, Robertson suggested the council look into a contract service for grant writing. For the animal services director position, both Robertson and other council members have said in the past that they feel the salary of $130,000 is too high for the position. In place of a director, they would staff an animal services manager and put more focus on animal control officers.
“The animal services director is redundant because it’s part of the PD, which has its own director, which is known as the PD chief,” Robertson said.
Council members also requested clarification on what went into an increase of about $250,000 in the Human Resources department’s personnel budget. The personnel budget for fiscal year 2024-25 was approximately $370,000, whereas the proposed budget for fiscal year 2025-26 is $626,000.
This is primarily attributed to the addition of two employee positions that the department requested at the council’s budget workshop in April. All personnel costs cover not just salaries, but health insurance and retirement benefits the city must pay, as well as increases to the city’s workers’ compensation liability insurance.
Robertson said the city is also going to put a hiring freeze on the Economic Development Manager position that is currently vacant. Councilmember Jim Avalos mentioned that the city is also looking at ways to save money when it comes to the city engineer contract.
The council voted unanimously to continue the public hearing at 5 p.m. on June 24.
