Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Budget Prior Year Bills topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Ways and Means approves $3,930 appropriation to clear prior-year human resources bills
Summary
The committee voted to appropriate $3,930 from the general fund to pay prior-year human resources bills, including recruitment costs and translation and drug-screening invoices, and heard that prior-year bills must be paid from free cash.
The Everett City Committee of Ways and Means on April 7 approved an appropriation of $3,930 from the general fund budgetary fund balance to pay prior-year human resources bills, amending an initial $225 request to include two additional invoices.
Council President Hawkins opened the item seeking $225 to cover prior-year recruitment bills from Human Resources. Committee members moved to amend the request to include two other unpaid items: a $3,430 invoice from Catholic Charities for event translation services and a payment to American Family Care for five employee drug screenings. The committee approved the amendment and the final appropriation by voice vote.
John Russolillo, acting human resources director, told the committee the department’s recruitment line is limited to $5,000 annually and that the office had essentially exhausted that allocation. “We’re limited on our recruitment. We only have $5,000 annually for that, and we've utilized basically all of it,” Russolillo said. He also noted the medical exams line had approximately $4,400 remaining that could be used but preferred to have an appropriation for the rest of the fiscal year.
The committee chair and members clarified a technical point: prior-year bills cannot be paid from the current-year operating budget and must be appropriated from free cash. That legal and financial requirement led several members to emphasize that prior-year obligations should be handled through a free-cash appropriation rather than by reassigning current spending lines.
The committee approved the amended appropriation and excused the department representative. No further conditions were added; the appropriation was recorded as favorable action as amended.
