The City of Mobile’s finance director presented the unaudited financial report for the month ending Aug. 31, 2025, saying the city’s ending cash balance for the month was $188,868,701 and that the general fund operating balance ended the month at $109,569,670. The report noted year-to-date total revenues of $331,858,391 and total expenditures of about $249,000,006.61 for the fiscal year to date.

“Mister president, members of council, mayor, I wanna continue our exciting morning with financial report. This is a report for the month of August or the month that ended 08/31/2025,” Finance Director Collins said while reading highlights from the packet. Collins told the council the city’s beginning balance was $194,703,982 and that the reserve fund held approximately $58,626,002.10 during the month.

Council members asked about the roughly $29.4 million net difference between revenues and expenditures and whether operating savings or timing drove the variance. Collins said the difference was largely the result of capital carryovers and transfers from the prior year included in the adopted fiscal 2026 budget and expected that number to shrink with final September transactions and routine year-end transfers. Collins also described that operating expenses for fiscal 2026 were reduced by about $14 million in the recently adopted budget.

Collins announced the administration will bring a budget resolution to collapse multiple city call centers into department-level line items, beginning with the fire department. ‘‘We’re going to bring a budget resolution to you that amends the budget that will collapse those call centers in the fire department,’’ Collins said. He explained the consolidation is intended to reduce the 73 individual call centers used in fiscal 2024 to a smaller number to improve manageability and potentially identify duplicate budgets to reduce costs without reducing service levels.

Council members sought clarity about transparency and line-of-sight to division-level spending after consolidation. Collins said divisions and their operational expenses will remain visible but will be shown in condensed line items on summary pages; detailed division-level information will still be tracked internally.

The council heard that the fiscal year closes Sept. 30, that auditing will begin the following week, and that an unaudited financial statement will be provided at the October meeting.