Office of the City Manager
Reference: Fourth Amendment to the 2024 Budget
To: Mayor Gregory Mills and Members of City Council
Through: Michael P. Martinez, City Manager
Prepared By: Kathryn Mortensen, Budget and Performance Manager
Date Prepared: November 20, 2024
PURPOSE:
To amend the 2024 Budget.
STRATEGIC FOCUS AREA:
Financially Responsible
BACKGROUND:
The City Council adopted the 2024 Budget on October 17, 2023, at $265,434,894. The First Amendment to the 2024 Budget adjusted this amount to $266,382,461 to accommodate additional police officers and a grant to the Greater Brighton Chamber of Commerce. In March, as per the 2024 Budget Resolution, capital carryover was administratively adjusted to reflect final year end amounts reducing the budget to $258,626,442.
The Second Amendment to the 2024 Budget adjusted the total budget to $307,843,125 to address administrative tracking changes, changes to lodging tax allocations, new grant awards received, increased fleet maintenance costs, and timeline changes to several approved capital projects.
The Third Amendment to the 2024 Budget adjusted the total budget to $308,922,297 to address additional grant funding, repayment of the loan from the Cemetery Perpetual Care Fund to the Cemetery Fund, as well as additional projects. These projects included engineering design for signs, an additional Trash Bash day, increased training costs for the police department, the cost of blood draw services, and an increase in credit card fee costs.
This Fourth Amendment to the 2024 Budget addresses increased benefits costs, a water leak in the Cemetery Fund, and the increased cost of Fleet Maintenance.
The City has a self-funded benefits fund that supports all costs associated with medical coverage for the City of Brighton. Budgeted expenditures in this fund include stop loss reimbursements that show as a credit and, therefore, lower overall expenses in the fund. The City receives these reimbursements on claims over a certain dollar amount. This year, there have been significantly fewer stop loss reimbursements than in previous years, while at the same time there have been more medical claims. Without these reimbursements to offset costs, the fund requires $500,000 of additional appropriation.
Staff at the Cemetery this year found a leak in their irrigation system. While the leak is now repaired, the leak led to increased spending on water as well as some repair costs that total to an additional $100,000.
Lastly, an increase in purchases for fleet replacement parts this year have created the need for an additional $200,000 in the fleet replacement fund. As our Fleet team has been fully staffed most of this year and implemented a new software that makes processes more efficient, repairs are being completed faster, leading to an increase in average inventory purchases per month. As this is an internal service fund, its revenue comes from user funds, thus necessitating amendments to not just the fleet fund, but also the general, cemetery, water, wastewater, and storm drainage funds.
This amendment will appropriate an additional $1,000,000 bringing overall appropriations to $309,922,297.
CRITERIA BY WHICH COUNCIL MUST CONSIDER THE ITEM:
All changes to Fund-level appropriations of the adopted budget must be made by a Supplemental Budget Appropriation.
STAFF RECOMMENDATION
Staff is recommending approval of the attached Third Amendment to the 2024 Budget Resolution.
OPTIONS FOR COUNCIL CONSIDERATION
Approve, amend, or deny the proposed resolution.
ATTACHMENTS
Proposed Resolution
Presentation