The Warrenton Board of Aldermen approved a budget adjustment increasing the city’s planned expenditures for fiscal 2025 by just shy of $240,000 following a request by Finance Director Meghan Waelder at their April 1 meeting.
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The Warrenton Board of Aldermen approved a budget adjustment increasing the city’s planned expenditures for fiscal 2025 by just shy of $240,000 following a request by Finance Director Meghan Waelder at their April 1 meeting.
Waelder said she was making the adjustments due to some budgeting errors and unplanned expenses that arose in the first couple months of the year.
Some of those budgeting errors included expenses for trash within the administrative department and electric and gas expenses at the Aquatic Center.
“Normally this isn’t done until October but I don’t want to continue to present financials that don’t really make sense when we have known expenses that are not being captured,” said Waelder.
She said they would make up the differences using the city’s reserve funds. The city had originally planned to increase their reserves from roughly $800,000 to $1 million but with the addition of the unforeseen expenses she asked to continue carrying the original figure in reserves until they could be shored up later in the year.
Waelder also noted the city expected an increase in interest earned which she planned to use to offset the rest of the increase.
“We were also a little conservative on the revenue projection for interest earned so I think that’s gonna offset the rest of it,” said Waelder.
Waelder continued saying she hoped to bring the city back up to that $1 million total for reserves in the future but it would not be addressed until budget discussions are held for fiscal 2026.
She also noted that roughly $7,600 of the increased expenses were related to an overhaul of the city’s website which was technically being spent out of the city’s ARPA funds and would not actually impact the general fund.
The largest increase by line item was $135,000 for gas and electric at the Aquatic Center.
The city had not previously budgeted any funds for those costs due to an oversight from the city’s transfer of the Aquatic Center to Midwest Pool Management.
Waelder said the city paid $20,000 for gas and electric at the center in the first two months of the year and averaged those costs out for the year to reach the $135,000 figure.
She also noted the figure was based on last year’s spend for gas and electric at the aquatic center, which was roughly $130,000.
She said it was an oversight on her part that it was not included originally and said it was likely overlooked since the city voted to outsource the pool’s operations to Midwest Pool Management late last year.
The increase to the trash service contract accounted for an additional $52,404 compared to the roughly $620,000 the city already had budgeted for the line item.
The ordinance passed unanimously 5-0 with Alderman Jack Crump absent.
