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By James Perkins Jr.

The administration presented to the city council a proposed 24-25 fiscal year budget, July 5th of this year. The city council passed its version of the 24-25 fiscal year budget on September 26th, only two working days before the deadline to have a new budget passed before the beginning of the fiscal year, which is today, October 1st. Once again, the city council has failed to do its job in a timely manner. This time they waited until the very last minute and voted to pass an unbalanced budget.

The city cannot pass nor operate with an unbalanced budget. The Code of Alabama 1975, Section 11-43-57 states,

“Annual appropriation of funds for expenditures of departments and interest on indebtedness.

In all cities, the council shall appropriate the sums necessary for the expenditures of the several city departments and for the interest on its bonded and other indebtedness, not exceeding in the aggregate within 10 percent of its estimated receipts, and such city council shall not appropriate in the aggregate an amount in excess of its annual legally authorized revenue. But nothing in this section shall prevent such cities from anticipating their revenues for the year for which such appropriation was made, or from contracting for temporary loans as provided in the applicable provisions of this title, or from bonding or refunding their outstanding indebtedness or from appropriating anticipated revenue at any time for the current expenses of the city and interest on the bonded and other indebtedness of the city. (Code 1907, §1196; Acts 1915, No. 469, p. 489; Code 1923, §1912; Code

1940, T. 37, §434.)”

The administration worked, literally all day, yesterday, and during the ‘wee hours’ this morning trying to untangle the city council’s passed unbalanced budget so that we could enter it into the city’s computer system and begin the fiscal year this morning. However, we simply cannot enter an unbalanced budget into the computer system.

At the very last minute and without giving the department heads and me an opportunity to review their newly created budget draft, they simply passed it and gave it to us to implement. For four (4) consecutive years, the department heads and I have explained this to them, but they simply will not yield nor compromise in their approach. Legally, technically, and physically, their approach is dysfunctional and does not work. They insist on creating their own budget template that does not correctly calculate benefits data.

They intentionally hide their final document until it is too late for the administration to review their changes prior to voting. They refuse to timely share their proposed/planned line-item changes with the administration so we could review and point out any potential errors and omissions. They delete filled positions requiring the administration to lay employees off without notice. They used unfair payroll practices to politically reward some and to punish others. They have not completely funded the interest on indebtedness. They hid their final budget from the administration and public prior to voting. They gave the administration only two working days to implement their voted-on budget before the beginning of the fiscal year, October 1st.\

Bottom line, yesterday was the first-time department heads and I had an opportunity to analyze the city council’s version of the budget they passed. And after our preliminary review, we have determined that the city council did not pass a balanced budget and therefore, the city does not have a functioning budget for this fiscal year, which starts today.

As a corrective action proposal, I recommend that the city council meet with the administration so that we can show them their errors and omissions, and once again, explain to them why their budgeting process is not a ‘best practice’ and simply does not work. In the meantime, we will operate without a budget.

James Perkins Jr. is the Mayor of the City of Selma.