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Council reviews city-code rules for budget amendments and requests police cost-per-officer breakdown
Summary
City staff reviewed City Code Chapter 2 (budgetary procedure), an SOP for budget revisions, and thresholds for line-item transfers; council members asked staff for cost-per-officer data and discussed salary-savings projections.
City staff briefed the Tuscaloosa City Council on the city's budget-amendment rules in City Code Chapter 2, Article 3, and on an internal standard operating procedure (SOP) that governs line-item transfers and budget revisions.
A staff member summarized the rules the council must follow to amend the budget and the internal approvals required. "Budget amendments, except as a loan or a line item transfer, an appropriation may not be altered nor expenditure made that is not appropriated in a budget or amendment thereto," the staff member read from the code. The staff member said the code adopts budgets at the department level, and that department heads have discretion to move funds between line items inside a department so long as the total department appropriation is not changed.
The SOP implementing the code took effect July 31, 2023, and was updated in February 2024, staff said. Key operational rules the staff described in the meeting include:
- Salary-savings revision requests below $5,000 may be approved by the chief financial officer (CFO). - Revision requests that cross departments or funds in the general fund must go to the finance committee and the council for approval; such requests must be submitted to the director of budgets and strategic planning by Wednesday at noon with backup documentation. - Revision requests that use restricted fund balances (ambulance franchise fees, municipal court fees, TPD funds, etc.) must go to finance and obtain council approval.
Council members raised how salary savings and unspent positions affect the general fund and requested more granular cost information for police and fire positions. The police chief and finance staff discussed the method the city uses to calculate a per-officer cost, and staff offered to provide a day-one and annualized per-officer cost and current salary-savings projections. "Every two weeks, by department, we will do a salary savings projection and calculation," a finance staff member said, and offered to provide the requested officer-cost and salary-savings detail the next day.
No ordinance or formal budget amendment was adopted during the meeting; the session consisted of a policy briefing and direction to staff to supply additional budget detail to council members.
