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Finance director: Cocoa’s assigned fund balance reset; council approves amending list and early debt repayment planning
Summary
Finance staff presented a consolidated review of assigned fund balance, recommended reassignments and proposed reserving funds for an ERP replacement and early debt repayment; council voted to amend the FY24 assigned fund balance list to include a $3 million early debt‑repayment set‑aside and items approved earlier in the meeting.
Rebecca Bowman, the city’s finance director, presented a multi‑year reconciliation of assigned fund balances dating to fiscal years 2021–2023 and summarized proposed assignments for fiscal year 2024.
Bowman said the consolidated assigned fund balance being presented totaled $16,631,258 and reviewed policy‑level reserves the city has in place, including a stabilization reserve (Bowman cited $13,000,000) and a liquidity reserve. She explained that some historic project allocations had been held across fiscal years and that staff proposed returning unspent buckets into a consolidated assigned list to simplify tracking.
Staff also described a proposed enterprise resource planning (ERP) replacement — described as a comprehensive core financial and HR/payroll platform — for which an estimated $3,000,000 was being held in assigned fund balance. Staff said the ERP estimate includes implementation consulting and that roughly half the cost would be charged to general fund and half to utilities.
Bowman and City Manager noted additional items to be included on the FY24 list: $335,300 for the city’s share of Stradley Park football concessions (approved by council that evening) and $100,000 for special‑needs playground equipment (approved that evening). Councilmember action amended the assigned fund balance list and added an early debt‑repayment hold of $3,000,000; council voted to approve the amended list unanimously.
City Finance and management staff said they would return with final numbers as purchases are completed and noted that any assigned fund balance appropriation into the budget requires a subsequent budgeting step when actual project costs are known.
