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Finance director reports staffing changes, catch-up on sales tax and user-fee study timeline
Summary
Finance Director Christy Ramirez reported on December 2024 department activities: accounting hires and departures, accounts-payable throughput, catch-up on sales-tax reporting, and a user-fee study targeted to inform fee updates by July 1; council asked for timing and staff confirmed the user-fee work should wrap up in coming months.
Finance Director Christy Ramirez delivered the finance department's report for the period through December 2024 at the Feb. 5 council meeting, outlining staffing changes, accounting workload, sales-tax reconciliation and next steps for a user-fee study intended to support fee changes effective July 1.
Ramirez said the department reconciled accounts receivable and sales-tax reporting after a backlog caused by interdepartmental transitions. Accounts payable processed more than 3,900 invoices during the reporting period and purchasing processed over 100 new purchase orders. Ramirez said payroll responsibilities were being documented and that the department had trained new staff on time-entry and retroactive-pay calculations.
On staffing, Ramirez confirmed the accounting specialist (AP) position was filled by Anai (last name not specified in the report) and that another customer-service position recently filled by Celeste Medrano started in January; two vacancies remained for an accounting specialist and a customer-service rep. She thanked veteran employees and noted a recent employee-recognition event.
Ramirez said the cost allocation (overhead) study is complete and that the user-fee study depends on that allocation; staff are collecting time allocations and expect to finish the user-fee work in the coming months so fee updates could be instituted for the July 1 fiscal-year cycle. The department has begun the year-end audit process for FY 23-24 and completed an overhead allocation study to feed into the user fee analysis.
Why it matters: The user-fee study will inform fee schedules and revenue assumptions for the upcoming fiscal year; staffing and process improvements address prior reporting delays that affected revenue and cash-management timeliness.
Council follow-up: Council asked about timing for completion; Ramirez replied the user-fee review should be wrapped up within the next month and then finalized in the coming months for council consideration ahead of a July 1 implementation date.
No formal council action was required on the departmental report.
