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Hiram Council approves $760,000 loan for facility renovations; audit warns general fund reserves may be exhausted
Summary
At its December meeting the Hiram City Council approved a 10-year $760,000 GMA loan to renovate two administrative facilities, authorized about $66,000 in additional streetscape funding, approved use of 2026 LMIG funds for Nebo Road, and adopted budget amendments after an auditor reported significant year-over-year losses and warned reserves could be gone by mid-2026.
The Hiram City Council on Tuesday moved ahead with a package of facility and road projects while receiving an auditor's caution that continuing budget gaps could deplete the general fund by June 30, 2026.
Auditor Whitaker told the council he had "issued an unmodified opinion" on the city's financial statements for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2025, and then laid out the numbers: total general fund assets of $3,575,225 (about $3.3 million in cash and investments), liabilities of $342,000 and a fund balance of roughly $3,232,000. Whitaker said general fund revenues were $4,868,000 while expenditures totaled $7,025,000, producing an excess of expenditures over revenues of $2,156,000 and a net change in fund balance of negative $1,581,000. He warned, "If that holds true, the city will not have any reserves in the general fund at 06/30/2026."
That financial backdrop set the context for several votes. The council adopted resolution 2025-11 authorizing execution of documents related to renovations of two city facilities and agreed to a 10-year loan through the…
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