At the budget workshop before Monday evening’s Eureka Springs City Council meeting, Finance Director Lonnie Clark presented council with a spreadsheet showing the city had at the end of September $823,036 “in the bank” which he compared to the December 2015 amount of $147,003.
“That tells a good story about what we’ve done,” Clark stated.
He said there was a time he wondered if the city were not one payroll away from having to start cashing in its CDs, and that was when Mayor Butch Berry imposed the spending freeze. “It was not fun,” Clark said, but noted that city departments responded and have been okay operating within their means.
Berry acknowledged the department heads who accepted the challenge of the freeze, and alderman Bob Thomas noted former alderman David Mitchell also had a significant role in focusing council on the particulars in the financial turnaround.
Berry said the recent water audit identified two major leaks, and the one on Planer Hill has been repaired. The other is at the sewer plant. Mayoral Assistant Kim Stryker said recent repairs have cut city water bills in half.
Clark said the city does not have the audit report yet, but it seems the problem is a few large leaks, not a scattershot of small ones. Alderman Terry McClung noticed that once the repair at the sewer plant is completed, the city might be saving $50,000 per year, and Berry said the city would continue to watch for anomalies in water usage.
In his comments at the end of the meeting, Berry noted the city has been trying for years to climb out of its financial hole and build reserves, a measure of financial wellbeing. He showed charts demonstrating a steady increase in the city’s reserves, and said, “I’m happy to say at the end of September 2018 we just surpassed $1,100,00 in our reserves with a couple of months to go this year.”
Other business
- Council approved seating Mark Tozzio on the Hospital Commission.
- Also approved was Res. 740, the annual resolution authorizing the mayor to “negotiate and execute a parking lot lease” for the Western District courthouse.
- Berry announced there are vacancies on these commissions: Planning, CAPC, Cemetery.
Next meeting will be Monday, Nov. 12, at 6 p.m.