Hoover CFO reports payroll fixes, policy drafts and a preliminary general-fund surplus

Jennifer Cornett, Hoover’s chief financial officer, told the City Council that the finance department has closed several legacy issues, added staff and prepared policy drafts while presenting unaudited fiscal year 2024 results that show more revenue than budgeted.

Cornett gave a quarterly “action and response” update and walked the council through outstanding items from an internal review. She said the department has hired two new managers — Amber Salter as payroll manager and Brad Nestor as general ledger manager — and is onboarding a revenue auditor and an accounts payable specialist. Cornett said she will bring a request in May for an additional financial analyst and expects to increase finance headcount by five across divisions by the end of the quarter.

Cornett told the council that the city completed year‑end reconciliations for fiscal 2024 and has tightened payroll controls. “We checked every W‑2 in the city, which was 900 some if we include all the part‑time people,” she said, adding that staff have resolved previous IRS notices related to 941 filings and are preparing to revise 2022 third‑ and fourth‑quarter 940 filings (which will likely trigger additional IRS notices that the city expects to resolve).

The presentation recapped a third‑party Munis assessment that recommended process changes rather than a full reimplementation. Cornett said scheduled trainings in May and June will test recommended fixes in a sandbox before moving them live and credited Mindy Wyatt for stepping into an application‑manager role during the Munis remediation.

On policy work, Cornett said drafts for payroll, purchasing and grant procedures have been circulated to the council for review and that two policies — a fund balance policy and an emergency fund policy — were on the agenda for council consideration.

Cornett presented preliminary, unaudited financial statements for FY2024. She said the general fund had budgeted revenues of $163 million and reported receipts of about $181 million. At the bottom of the presented statement she noted a $10.4 million excess in the general fund but cautioned that the final audited figure will likely be “somewhere in the nines,” with interest income and timing of capital projects the primary drivers of the variance.

She also reviewed revenue composition and trends: sales and use tax (including online sales tax) accounted for roughly 78% of tax revenue and tax revenues made up about 80% of total city revenues. Cornett highlighted that sales and use taxes and state‑sourced SSUT collections were up year‑over‑year for the first six months of the fiscal year; combined increases for SSUT and local sales tax represented roughly a $2.1 million increase (about 3.86%) compared with the previous year for the October–March period.

Council members asked follow‑up questions about debt and lodging tax timing; Cornett said she did not have the city’s total outstanding debt figure at the podium but would provide it to council members later and agreed to break out grocery tax receipts on future revenue reports if the council wanted that line item separated.

Cornett closed by reiterating that the figures presented were preliminary and subject to change when the audit is complete.

Ending

Cornett asked council members to review the draft policies circulating by mail and signaled more detailed personnel requests and policy proposals would return to the council in May and June.