Budget committee reviews year-end finances, ARPA balances and Munis ERP go‑live plan

Councilperson Napoli convened the Budget and Finance Committee on Feb. 17 to hear year‑end and January financial reports from finance staff Miss Patel, who reported fund balances, investment placements, American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) cash positions, public safety premium‑pay totals and a planned enterprise resource planning (ERP) go‑live.

Patel said the committee had been circulated copies of the December 2024 and January 2025 financial reports. For the fiscal year ending Dec. 31, 2024, she reported journal fund revenues of $151,552,000 and said those figures reflected strength of roughly 4 percent compared with budgeted targets. Patel told the committee the city’s general fund budget was $157,000,000 and reported a vacancy factor of $2,700,000.

Patel gave explicit figures for public safety premium pay: police premium pay expenditures closed the year at $2,700,000; fire premium pay at $3,300,000; and EMS premium pay at $860,000.

On investments, Patel said the general fund year‑end cash position included substantial placements in the Pennsylvania Local Government Investment Trust (PLGIT). She reported roughly $36.5 million of the balance was held with PLGIT, including about $30 million in term investments maturing at staggered dates, and that remaining liquid balances were in money‑market accounts yielding about 4.69 percent APY. Patel said the city also keeps a TD Bank operating balance (reported at about $4.5 million at year‑end) yielding about 3.5 percent APY.

Patel reported ARPA cash positions of $22,400,000 at year‑end 2024, of which about $18,900,000 was held with PLGIT (including approximately $15,000,000 in term investments) and $3,400,000 was held at TD Bank for vendor payments. For the end of January, she reported ARPA cash of $20,500,000, with $18,900,000 again at PLGIT and $1,600,000 at TD Bank.

Other fund summaries provided by Patel included: solid waste fund revenues of about $17,000,000 with expenditures reported around $17,800,000; risk fund revenues of approximately $35,600,000 with expenditures near $33,600,000; a stormwater fund showing revenues around $6,100,000 and expenditures around $6,900,000; and a golf fund with revenues reported near $2,500,000 and expenditures about $2,000,000. Patel said the new building code fund was created this year to separately track building‑standards fees and related revenues and expenditures.

On capital projects, Patel said the quarter‑4 capital expenditures were $1,500,000 and that departments had encumbered about $7,000,000 for future work. She said detailed capital project status reports had been circulated and could be discussed in individual committee meetings.

Patel also updated the committee on the city’s ERP migration. “We are working on... the implementation of our ERP project from Eden to Munis. Potentially, our go‑live date today is March 18,” she said. Patel said the Eden system would no longer be functional after the transition, though historical data would remain available for queries. She added the city expects to implement payroll and human resources modules later in the year and projected those two modules would be live by year‑end.

Committee members asked no substantive follow‑up questions during the meeting. Napoli noted a final 2024 vendor payment remained to be processed at the end of the current week and that the final December accounting would be provided in the following month’s report. The committee adjourned without taking any formal votes on the items reported.

The report and supporting capital project documents were circulated to committee members and the controller for review.