Good afternoon, everyone. Please see below for this week’s update.
Key Meetings
-On Tuesday, several department and division heads met in the council chambers to participate in a webinar to learn how to allocate personnel to the programs we’ve identified through the Priority-Based Budgeting process. Spreadsheets have been distributed to our departments to begin that process, which should take about a week or two to complete. The next step in the costing phase will to be allocate those nonpersonnel costs such as supplies, utilities, etc. The final step of the cost allocation phase will be to assign revenues (specific user fees and charges, not tax revenues) to the programs, to create a full picture of the programs we offer, how much they cost, and how much of those costs the programs recover. If you’d like to view the webinar yourself, you can by following this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvCX6DBq_ug&feature=youtu.be
-On Thursday, Mayor Seibert, Councilman Stanley, and I participated in a panel discussion for the Leadership Joplin group to talk about our roles with the city, as part of the Local Government Day program.
-Staff also met on Thursday with the co-chairs of the Sales Tax Task Force to discuss the education component of the continuation of the sales tax on titled property. Staff has begun working on the educational pieces for discussion with public civic groups, etc. over the course of the summer, as we approach the election on August 3rd .
Miscellaneous
-According to finance, the FEMA reimbursements for the large public assistance projects are starting to come in. I’ve asked the department to provide me with periodic updates as they come in, which I will pass along to you either through my updates or via email.
-You may recall in a previous update that we asked FEMA for an extension on $1 million that was granted to the city for repair of infrastructure damaged by the 2011 tornado. We received word this week that the extension has been approved through November of 2017, short of the deadline we requested of September, 2019, which would coincide with the deadline for expenditure of our CDBG-DR grant. Staff met earlier this morning to discuss the timeline of the projects that we could complete by November of 2017, to determine if we could realistically meet that deadline without interfering with the timing of the CDBG-DR projects or exposing the city to the possibility of paying for the FEMA projects using local funds if we commit to them but don’t meet the deadline. As I receive additional information I will bring it to you for discussion.
-In other disaster grant news, staff from PW and finance met this week with state officials about the $14 million DED allocation that was awarded to the city. We had a deadline of June 10th to spend those funds. After discussion, the state allowed us to substitute an overlay project that has already been completed in the recovery area for which FEMA funds weren’t eligible to be used, so the full grant has been completed within the extended deadline.
No comments:
Post a Comment