Finance committee reviews $5.5M in year‑end transfers and seeks revised Dec. 31 financials

Cleveland Heights finance staff presented updated year‑end fund summaries and a list of end‑of‑year transfers at the Finance Committee meeting on March 3, and committee members requested a revised Dec. 31, 2024 financial statement showing the transfers and final unencumbered balances.

Mayor Sarah summarized the administration’s fund projections for 2025 and explained that the documents provided to council intentionally excluded American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars from the 2025 budget presentation. “We're expecting a little bit of a surplus in the general fund, which will take our current ending balance for 2024 from 27,300,000.0 up to that 28,500,000.0 that we're rounding,” Mayor Sarah said during the meeting as she walked members through the fund summary. She also said that the administration had prepared a final list of transfers made at year end and would provide the formatted list to all council members.

Committee members asked for clarity on several figures. One committee member read a transfer total supplied by the administration and stated the amount: “In a total of $5,494,437,” noting that those transfers were recorded as moving money out of general fund 101 into other funds to avoid negative balances. Mayor Sarah said council had previously authorized the administration to make transfers up to $10,000,000 at year end; the administration did not use the full authorization and reported transfers of about $5.4 million.

Staff explained that the versions of the financial documents circulated at different times reflected successive updates: an initial December 31 report produced under the council’s reporting timeline, followed by a later, final list of transfers once year‑end closing work was complete. Mayor Sarah said the administration provided preliminary transfer information on Dec. 31 because the year‑end close process was still underway and that the final list had now been prepared.

The administration supplied several concrete numbers for committee review. Mayor Sarah said the city expects budgeted revenues of about $59,000,000 and budgeted expenditures of about $58,000,000 for 2025, yielding a projected unencumbered general fund reserve of roughly $28,500,000 at the end of 2025. For the beginning balance, she said, “What I can say with a level of comfort is that the beginning fund balance, 01/01/2025, is $27,301,000, $301,059.01.” Staff also noted that the all‑funds ending balance for 2024, excluding ARPA, was about $70,364,484.39 after expenditures and encumbrances.

Committee members pressed staff about discrepancies between a February 4 fund summary and the revised materials provided March 3, noting variances in reported 2024 revenue and expenditures. Staff acknowledged some formatting and reporting differences between the spreadsheet forms and committed to producing reconciled documents that council could read and compare. A committee member asked whether staff could provide an expense report in a particular format used previously; staff said they could provide it in that format even if it did not reconcile perfectly to other exports, and agreed to follow up.

Next steps: committee members asked the administration to distribute the revised Dec. 31, 2024 financial statement showing the finalized transfers and to post updated documents on the city website. The committee also scheduled further review at a meeting on March 11 and individual follow‑up meetings between staff and councilors for specific ledger and encumbrance questions.

No formal vote was taken at the March 3 meeting on transfers or the budget; staff provided the updated lists and agreed to additional reconciliation and distribution.