Fairview finance staff report fund shortfall, audits behind schedule; council asks for clearer public access

City finance staff told council on Sept. 3 that recent quarterly financial statements show the city’s ending general-fund balance was about $600,000 lower than expected when the budget was adopted and that the city remains behind on several routine audits.

In the presentation, staff said the Grant and Carole [sic] projects fund remains negative on the current report until audit adjustments and transfers are completed. The finance presenter told council: "This is gonna continue until we can catch up the audits, and we can get the transfer fee into the fund that are that are needed to be made in into it to account for what has been spent out of that fund." The city manager noted staffing turnover in the accounting office and thanked finance staff for continuing to produce the reports amid personnel changes.

Councilors asked for clearer public presentation of the reports. One councilor requested extracting the financial pages from the council packet and placing them more prominently on the city website; staff agreed to produce a shortened slide summary for the next quarterly review and to make the current financial pages easier to find online.

Councilors also asked clarifying questions about the administrative excise charge fund and system-development-charge (SDC) funds. Staff explained SDC funds are held in separate funds and are constrained by the specific allowable uses for each charge; water SDCs and other system-specific SDCs must be used for capacity-increasing projects tied to those utilities.

Ending: The council did not take any budget-altering vote at the Sept. 3 meeting. Staff committed to posting clearer financial summaries, preparing a brief slide package for the next quarterly report and continuing to complete outstanding audits. The city manager noted audits are progressing and that figures may fluctuate as audit adjustments are completed.