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Finance committee approves community disbursements, website contract and multiple budget revisions
Summary
The committee approved several district disbursements to community groups and schools, a $36,231 amendment to a website contract with Granicus to update the city——s homepage and accessibility, and multiple budget revisions recognizing grants and reprioritizing road and contingency funds.
The Tuscaloosa finance committee approved multiple small community disbursements, a website contract amendment and several budget revisions during its meeting.
Councilor Howard sought a $2,000 disbursement from District 2 improvement funds for the West Alabama Multicultural Alliance (WAMA) to support WAMA Fest at the Tuscaloosa River Market. "WAMA Fest will be held on April the 12th at the Tuscaloosa River Market here in Tuscaloosa," Councilor Howard said; staff confirmed the funds could be pulled from prior-year savings and that a budget revision would be on this week's agenda. A motion was made and the item was approved.
The committee similarly approved a late request for Skyland Elementary to use district improvement funds for a spring clean or May Day activity; a $1,000 Leadership Tuscaloosa charity benefit dinner disbursement from District 4 to support a Project Warrior Chief statue project; and a District 7 disbursement for the West Alabama Multicultural Alliance Heritage program. All four disbursements were moved, seconded and approved by voice vote.
The committee also approved an amendment to a professional services contract with Granicus for $36,231 to rebuild the city homepage, modernize site design and incorporate federal accessibility standards. A presenter summarized the contract as follows: the work rebuilds the homepage so that style changes propagate site-wide and addresses accessibility standards; staff noted an existing annual maintenance contract of roughly $20,000——to $25,000 continues for back-end maintenance but does not cover visual redesign or accessibility improvements. The committee moved and approved the contract amendment.
Budget revisions approved included:
- General fund budget revision #10: activation of prior-year district savings ($3,000 moved for Councilor Howard's items) and a TPD request to move $20,250 from a diversion and training technology fund into travel and education to pay for multiple training courses. Chief Sanders outlined the training items and costs, including cyber analyst training, an emergency-dispatch conference ($6,400), Caliber Press recruiting seminar ($1,400), and negotiator training ($1,800).
- Recognition of a $1,000,000 Appalachian Regional Commission grant for the Sabin Center and recognition of the state's portion ($676,596) of a federal runway-extension grant, with those revenues added to respective project line items.
- General fund reserve revision (number eight): recognition of ATRIP 2 state funds ($2,000,000) for the Julia Tutweiler access project; closing prior paving projects and adding $2.668 million to the 2026 citywide resurfacing project to allow award to the contractor; closeouts moving $194,869 into contingency; and use of contingency for design ($72,875 for Julia Tutweiler design; $142,796 for a one-way design project), leaving $64,927 available in contingency after adjustments. Staff said these steps allow the city to fully fund and award contracts while preserving the overall bottom-line budget.
All presented items were approved in committee. Staff said the full council will consider the RSA-conversion resolution next week and other board-level actions as needed.
