Starkville aldermen are expected to approve a $60,000 loan to Starkville Parks Commission today so the group, which ran out of money for September’s payroll and public retirement payments, can get above water before the end of the fiscal year.
The city is also expected to suggest a $30 increase in per-player fees for SPC team sports that should cover the autonomous department’s monthly shortfalls next year, save for an increase in expenses or poor budgetary management.
As an autonomous agency, Parks is under no obligation to approve the player fee increase.
SPC reached a critical financial situation this month when the department ran out of money and fell about $57,000 shy of completing bare necessity bills, including end-of-the-month payroll, payroll tax and Public Employee’s Retirement System of Mississippi payments.
SPC Commissioner Dan Moreland made a last-minute push for additional funds in a letter last week that stated SPC had $21,974.76 in its checking account. September’s bills, however, totaled a combined $78,960.23, leaving Parks $56,986.23 short for the month.
Aldermen acknowledged the severe situation created by SPC’s finances Monday.
Despite a lack of representation from Parks — it sent no commissioner, director, administrator or employee to the special-call meeting — the city’s budget committee still moved forward with its recommendation, the three-person group said, because city employees’ salaries must be paid.
Vice Mayor Roy A. Perkins, who backed Ward 5 Alderman and budget committee Chairman Scott Maynard’s loan proposal, said the city has a legal authority to disburse funds as it sees fit. He deemed the proposed move necessary and proper.
When asked if Parks has either a leadership or funding problem, Perkins did not directly comment, instead reiterating that the city has the financial duty to make sure employees are paid.
SPC’s financial woes became a 2013 municipal election issue when in April of that year a Watkins, Ward and Stafford audit revealed three fiscal anomalies, including the fact that Moreland issued an unauthorized cashier’s check for $35,000 to help pay the department’s J.L. King Splash Pad construction bill.
Parks also exhausted its improvement budget, an annual allotment of $180,000 funded by the city’s 2 percent food and beverage tax, by late May 2013.
A June report estimated SPC owed Starkville Electric Department more than $100,000 and forecasted overdue fees and expected usage at $180,000 for the fiscal year.
Moreland’s letter blamed SPC’s financial woes on the prior administration’s cut of its operational budget. Perkins, who frequently champions Moreland’s and SPC’s contributions to the city, led a successful charge last year to give Parks an additional $96,000, or $8,000 per month, in operational funding.
That same funding increase is present in the upcoming FY 2014-2015 budget, a document which aldermen will cover in a 5:30 p.m. public hearing today at City Hall.
Carl Smith covers Starkville and Oktibbeha County for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @StarkDispatch
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