Pacific committee reviews FY2024 actuals, corrects transportation calculation and recommends targeted budget adjustments

Meeting chair (unnamed in transcript) opened the committee’s review of fiscal-year 2024 actuals and proposed changes for FY2025, saying the spreadsheet had been updated with end-of-year figures and that items the clerk touched were highlighted in green while discussion points were marked in yellow. "Anything that I touched, I made, I highlighted green," the meeting chair said.

Why it matters: The committee’s review led to several recommended changes to the proposed FY2025 budget that the chair will send to the full Board of Aldermen for approval. The most consequential finding was a spreadsheet calculation error that understated transportation expenses by $109,000 and required revenue/line-item adjustments to avoid a deficit.

The chair called attention to several revenue and expense lines. For revenues, St. Louis County’s 1¢ sales tax for FY2024 came in at $267,329 versus a FY2025 projection of $305,000; the chair said the number tracks prior years and did not recommend changing it. Building permits showed a FY2024 actual of about $156,000 against a proposed $205,000 for FY2025; committee members declined to alter that projection.

On internal transfers, Miss Barfield explained that a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes transfer from the water and sewer fund was recalculated after an auditor recommendation to base the transfer on a 7.975 base rate. That change reduced the FY2024 transfer to roughly $110,000 while the proposed FY2025 transfer was listed at $282,000. The chair recommended—and the committee agreed—to set the recommended transfer at $140,000 for the board to consider to avoid overstating general-fund revenue and to limit pressure on operating balances.

The committee also reviewed several expense items. For police vehicle fuel and oil, prior years were near $48,000–$51,000 while the FY2025 proposal was $36,000; members recommended $44,000 as a compromise. The group left building-maintenance at a conservative $50,000 to cover likely mid-year needs and flagged grave openings as an overlooked expense that staff currently handle with city crews and that should be monitored for a possible budget amendment.

Transportation error and fix: While reviewing transportation lines, the committee identified a spreadsheet omission tied to a Smoky Mountain Lane ARPA entry that left out $109,000. That omission produced a calculated transportation deficit of $36,864. Members discussed options and agreed to increase the motor-vehicle 1¢ sales tax projection (discussed figures ranged from 600 to 615, expressed as thousands in the packet) and applied corrected calculations; after the adjustment the transportation column showed a $16,979 surplus. The chair described the root cause as a calculation field that was not dragged down to include the $109,000 line.

Next steps: The chair will forward the edited budget and highlighted corrections to the full Board of Aldermen and plans to present the changes at the budget workshop before the next board meeting so the board can act on formal amendments if necessary. Several line items were noted for follow-up after the pending audit entries are posted (for example, tourism tax receipts that may be booked back to FY2024). The committee emphasized these are recommendations to the board, not final approvals.

Ending: The committee concluded its line-by-line review and instructed staff to circulate revised sheets to aldermen and to revisit flagged items—such as transfers, audit adjustments, and grave openings—during the upcoming workshop and board meeting.