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Budget board flags EMS overtime and misc. municipal items for follow-up
Summary
Board members pressed staff about recurring rescue/EMS overtime overruns, questioned miscellaneous public-works costs (software/implementation and tree service), and asked for reconciliations of revolving and office consolidation funds; staff agreed to supply detailed breakdowns.
During the March 3 meeting, Lincoln Budget Board members moved from school budgets to municipal items and focused significant attention on rescue/EMS overtime, public-works classifications and several other line-item anomalies.
Committee members repeatedly questioned why overtime for rescue/EMS has been well above the $300,000 budget in recent years. One member warned the line could reach double the budgeted amount and asked whether hiring additional staff would be more cost-effective than ongoing overtime. "We have to plan for it because we are going over it," a board member said. Staff replied that minimum manning, sick calls, military leave and injuries drove much of the overtime and that revenue from out-of-town runs only partially offsets the cost, noting reimbursement rates from other towns and insurers vary.
Members asked the administration to provide a staffing-vs-overtime analysis. "If that's something that you still have access to, if you could share that with us," one member said. Another suggested automating simple Excel checks to highlight large variances between prior-year actuals and current-year budgets so the board could focus on the highest-impact differences.
Public works flagged $36,000 in miscellaneous for an online service (click-fix) and an asset-management module; members suggested the account be reclassified to 'software' and asked whether the implementation fees are one-time or recurring. Other municipal topics included questions about the animal shelter budget that appears underbudgeted relative to historical spending and a request for a reconciliation of revolving funds and grants reported in different lines.
The board scheduled follow-ups: staff will supply a detailed breakdown of the Internet-service overrun, produce the requested reconciliation for the revolving fund, clarify the nature and term of public-works software charges, and locate prior rescue staffing studies. The meeting ended after approving administrative minutes and formal adjournment.
The board made a formal motion to approve the Feb. 26 minutes and later adjourned; both procedural motions passed by voice vote.
