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Council presses for clearer tracking of grant-funded park projects and ARPA carryover
Summary
Council members asked staff to label grant-funded line items and to separately track ARPA-derived carryover reserves; staff scheduled a Nov. 5 public-works/parks meeting to finalize the comprehensive parks plan and said project cost estimates will follow.
Council members pressed staff to make it easier to identify which capital and operating expenditures in quarterly reports are funded by grants rather than city general revenue.
During the third-quarter presentation staff noted a $141,000 operating transfer to parks from the general fund and clarified that some park and improvement work has been supported by grants such as RCO (Recreation and Conservation Office) funding for Oconee Park. A council member asked that future reports include an explicit notation when an expenditure is 100% grant-funded; Sarah Kaczmarek agreed: “We can add a note that says if it's a 100% grant funded or 87% grant funded.”
City Administrator Sandy Wells explained that federal ARPA dollars were used in prior years to offset police and fire salaries, which in effect freed up general-fund dollars; the city now shows a carryover reserve (staff estimated approximately $979,000) that is not technically restricted and that staff proposed to track separately in future quarterly reporting. Wells said the city could transfer funds to the capital-improvement fund if council prefers, but noted the capital-improvement fund is usually composed of real-estate-excise-tax (REET) revenue and mixing sources could create tracking complexity.
Staff also reported the comprehensive parks plan is effectively complete and scheduled a public-works/parks committee meeting for Nov. 5 to finalize remaining items and collect engineer estimates for a set of prioritized projects, including accessibility improvements and a covered picnic area. Staff said remaining RCO grant funds include archaeological work that is finished and that the plan will identify estimated costs for each prioritized project.
Where the council left the matter: staff will (1) add grant-funding flags to future quarterly reports, (2) include a carryover-reserve / ARPA tracking slide in future reports, and (3) convene the parks/public-works committee Nov. 5 to finalize the comprehensive parks plan and return project cost estimates to the council.
