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Grand Island staff outline FY26 finance and IT budget changes, citing higher audit and software costs
Summary
Assistant city administrator Patrick Brown presented a FY26 finance and IT budget that includes a higher audit contract, reorganizations in finance, and increased IT licensing and security costs. Council asked for hiring and costing details before final approval.
Assistant City Administrator and Chief Financial Officer Patrick Brown on Aug. 21 presented the finance and information-technology portions of the city's proposed fiscal year 2026 budget, telling the Grand Island City Council that audit and software costs are the primary drivers of operating increases.
Brown said finance department personnel services are budgeted to rise 3.8 percent while operating expenses are up 31.9 percent, attributing the larger jump mainly to outside audit work and a new financial reporting module. "Most of that cost is audit cost," Brown said, adding he had "budgeted 120 up from 70k." He also described a financial-reporting module the city plans to use to produce monthly comprehensive reports for the audit.
The proposal includes internal reorganizations: reclassifying the assistant finance director to controller, moving an accountant to a budget-and-purchasing manager role and transferring utility billing from finance to the utilities department because the billing staff are already located with utilities. Brown also said the grants administrator would move to Community Development to increase redundancy with the department's grants staff.
On information technology, staff told the council the IT internal service fund includes a 7 percent personnel increase to reflect a systems technician reclass to an infrastructure engineer. IT is budgeted to pay about $69,740 more in operating costs, largely for antivirus and Microsoft licensing, and staff said they have just moved to a new antivirus product protecting roughly 500 devices and about 60 servers. The city purchased a package that includes a 24/7 security operations center, staff said.
Council members asked for specific backup: the council pressed for exact audit-contract figures, how the budgeted amounts would be split among enterprise funds, and hiring timetables for prioritized positions. Brown said administrative fees paid by enterprise funds cover a share of centralized services such as finance, human resources and legal.
Why it matters: The finance and IT budget proposals set the baseline for next year's city operations and affect staffing, procurement and how the city reports and supports major capital projects. Council members said they want more detailed cost allocations, hiring timelines and written comparisons for reclassifications before finalizing the budget.
Ending: Staff said they will return with more detailed cost breakdowns and timing for the proposed reorganizations and software contract costs prior to adoption of the FY26 budget.
