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Finance committee corrects YMCA payment, flags lost solar credits and continues budget freeze
Summary
Ashley corrected a YMCA payment entry, presented budget‑vs‑actuals at 75% of the year and said the city will not receive expected solar credits because a solar farm was offline pending a back‑ordered part. The committee discussed legal cost overruns, capital reconciliation and temporary finance support.
Ashley led a warrant and financial update for the Finance Committee, correcting a line in the warrant that listed the YMCA payment as a “first half” when it was the second half of a $75,000 allocation for social services. “It says first half. It should say second half — I’ll have Devin Lamb fix that,” Ashley said.
On budget performance, Ashley said the city is about 75% through the fiscal year and that the legislative/legal line is over budget, driven largely by legal bills. She described a budget freeze and an internal reallocation process to avoid audit findings caused by departments overspending individual lines. “We’re in a budget freeze right now,” she said, and the finance team will review requests to pull from reserves for legitimate overruns.
Ashley also confirmed the city will not receive expected solar credits because a solar farm was offline while a part was on back order. “So the solar farm was down due to a part being on back order, so it wasn't receiving any credits at all,” she said. Committee members said the lost credits contributed to higher power costs in departmental budgets and asked for reconciliation details when the new finance director starts.
Capital reconciliation was the next focus: Charlie said the city needs better activity codes, contract‑expiry tracking and a finance manual; Sue Lessard has been contracted to support reconciliations while the finance director role is vacant. “We need a full budget book, policies and procedures manual for the entire finance department,” Charlie said.
Why it matters: The corrected YMCA payment prevents possible double‑billing confusion; the solar credits outage is a one‑time loss that raised departmental power expenses; and unresolved capital reconciliation and absent finance leadership increase near‑term implementation risk.
Next steps: Ashley will update the warrant entry via Devin Lamb, supply initial solar‑credit reconciliation information as available, and place longer reconciling tasks on the incoming finance director’s work list. The committee will continue to review capital items and reserve requests at upcoming meetings.
