Meriden finance committee approves $459,000.25 transfer to true up FY25 accounts

Meriden’s Finance Committee voted to approve a resolution that transfers $459,000.25 from the city’s investment income account to cover departmental overages in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2025.

The finance director told the committee that overall revenues exceeded the FY25 budget by about $2,300,000 while expenses ran roughly $459,000 over a $222,000,000 budget. “For fiscal year 25, the good news is our revenues exceeded budget by about $2,300,000,” the finance director said, adding the bulk of the favorable revenue performance came from investment income.

The resolution is a routine year-end “true up” required by the city charter to align actual expenditures with budgeted account lines, the finance director said: “The charter indicates that the city has to basically true up every account within the general fund.” He explained that the proposed transfer would move $459,000.25 from the investment income line — which the director said had actuals of about 3.9 million compared with a $1,000,000 budget — to cover the over-budget departmental lines.

The finance director identified two main drivers of the variance: salary and staffing vacancies that produced underruns in many departments, and overtime-driven overruns in other areas. He singled out the fire department, saying that department was “over budget last year by 737,000,” and said the administration increased the FY26 overtime budget from $1.6 million to $1.9 million and added four firefighters to help reduce overtime costs going forward.

A resident speaker, Dan Zaborowski of 39 Fiesta Heights, raised questions during public comment about the figure he saw in meeting materials ($459,025) and urged more transparency and the ability for the public to comment after presentations rather than only before them. “Right now, as it stands … there’s nothing in here explaining basically where did this come from,” Zaborowski said, urging the committee to do “a little more diligence.”

Counselor Scowcroft asked procedural questions about where the surplus goes and whether the true-up affects historical budget columns; the finance director confirmed that the transfers will balance individual lines and that any remaining surplus will flow to the undesignated fund balance. The director also said the city’s fund balance had increased from 7.3% to about 12.5% in recent years.

After brief procedural checks and a motion by the finance director, the committee approved the resolution by voice vote. Individual roll-call tallies were not recorded in the transcript; the finance director stated the transfer would satisfy audit requirements as part of the year-end close.

The committee returned briefly to public comment but no additional speakers came forward. The meeting then adjourned.