City manager outlines steps to close $438,412 gap in proposed FY2025 budget

May 6, 2025 — City Manager Tom Sari told the Rawlins City Council at a budget work session that the city’s preliminary FY2025 budget showed $12,819,000 in revenues against $13,000,258 in expenditures, leaving a $438,412 shortfall that the city needs to close before final adoption.

Sari outlined a package of accounting adjustments, temporary freezes and reallocations he said would bring the general fund into balance while deferring discussion of longer-term service and staffing changes. “We were about $450,000 heavier in expenditures than revenue,” Sari said as he opened the presentation. He told council he would update the budget documents and return the balanced first reading at the May 20 council meeting.

The principal items Sari detailed included increasing projected interest income by $160,000 (to about $500,000) based on roughly $26 million in cash reserves and assumed short-term yields; increasing projected gaming revenue to $225,000; adding an operating transfer of $151,000 from the internal service fund to cover a 9 percent increase in health insurance premiums; and budgeting $75,741 to allow step increases on a new salary schedule. He also proposed temporarily freezing several positions — including refreezing an earlier-unfrozen human resources director line (about $110,000), freezing a proposed purchasing agent position, and freezing two police officer positions — plus a parks technician and a $70,000 DDA assistance position. Sari said capital purchases would be capped at $1,000,000 in this plan while noting that annual depreciation exceeded $1.5 million and that the city likely needs an additional $500,000–$1,000,000 in capital each year to avoid an asset-replacement “crisis.”

Council members asked for clarifications on staffing and service impacts. Council member Hussain sought confirmation that capital additions to police and fire were combined to meet the $1,000,000 cap; Sari confirmed they were. Streets staffing and the size of the street program drew repeated questions: a staff speaker, identified in the record as Cody, said the current operating budget and equipment levels limited the utility of adding staff unless operating funds and equipment were also increased. Council members and staff discussed developing a multiyear streets plan before committing to additional hires.

Sari described hiring difficulties for higher-salary positions. He said the finance director search had taken about 2½ years and that HR director candidates who interviewed were several tens of thousands of dollars above the city’s pay scale; he told council he was reluctant to set a single department head’s pay substantially above others. On adoption timing, Sari said he would incorporate the balancing items into the budget book and present a balanced first reading at the May 20 meeting, with a second reading June 3 and a final reading June 9.

No formal policy decisions or vote were taken during the work session; Sari presented the package as options for council consideration and asked for direction. Council members and staff agreed to continue the review and for staff to prepare the formal budget documents for the scheduled readings.

The work session also touched on enterprise funds and capital plans outside the general fund: Sari said the city’s water master plan lists roughly $52 million in projects and that financing some work would require borrowing or other external funding sources in future years, which could imply future rate changes or loans.

Next steps: staff will update the formal budget documents and bring a balanced first-reading ordinance to the May 20 council meeting. The council did not take the listed items as final approvals at the May 6 work session.