Ione council holds budget workshop; staff flags accounting cleanup, department variances

City of Ione staff led a budget workshop Thursday, July 24, reviewing department-level budgets, three years of actuals and revenue-to-budget comparisons, and identifying a number of accounting errors that must be corrected before a final budget is adopted.

Finance staff member Andrea (staff member) opened the discussion with an explanation of the budget accounting format and said she had extracted three-year actuals directly from the city's financial system (Cassell) to avoid manual errors. "I printed out what Cassell prints out is by fund, not by department," Andrea said. She described reassigning items that had been posted to the wrong accounts and correcting formulas in hand-prepared worksheets.

Andrea told the council she had noted formula errors and misplaced transactions across several accounts, and that some items currently recorded as revenue contain expenses that must be moved to expense accounts. "When accounts payable was paying it, they were picking the first number that said...not realizing that the 47 is a revenue and not an expense account," she said.

Why it matters: the council will not have reliable year-end and fund-balance figures until staff finishes a cleanup and the audit process completes. Andrea repeated that many of the 2024-25 numbers are unaudited and may be reclassified. "Those '24, '25 numbers...the numbers will stay the same, but where they go is probably we're still making adjustments," she said.

Key department points

- City council/city clerk/legal: Andrea said legal expenses were sprinkled through multiple departments and asked the council for direction on how to allocate attorney costs. She noted attorney work appears in city council, wastewater/tertiary and other funds and recommended clearer assignment rules.

- Police and public safety: Andrea said police salary increases (a COLA tied to the MOU) and added dispatch/animal control costs drove higher police-related expenses. She said there are capital items and suggested separate presentations from police and fire at a future workshop.

- Fire/Measure M: Andrea said Measure M was being used only for personnel per conversations with Fire Chief Kenny, and that the fire fund still retained a fund balance intended to cover staff for a year.

- Public works/tertiary/wastewater: Andrea recommended separating tertiary-plant and wastewater accounts in the budget (they were currently clumped under public works), saying the aggregation made it hard to tell which expenses belonged to each operation.

- Lighting & landscape / CFDs: staff found expenses and revenues had been mixed between an 8221 account and a fiduciary (bond) account; Andrea said the team renamed accounts to avoid future confusion.

Council reaction and follow-up

Councilors pressed staff to dig into large "transfers in/transfers out" entries that appear to double-count funds across accounts; one council member noted a nearly $1 million transfers-out figure that needs reconciliation. Several council members asked that staff correct formulas, reclassify misplaced entries, and prepare clearer summaries that can be run directly from Cassell.

Council asked that department heads (fire, public works, recreation) be invited to present their budgets at a future workshop and that staff complete cleanup before a year-end budget adjustment is proposed. Andrea said she would continue moving numbers into Cassell so the city can print consistent, fund-based budget reports.

Ending: Staff said the city auditor had additional questions and the audit remained in process; Andrea expected an update at the next council meeting and asked council to provide any additional data points that would speed the cleanup.