CHAMOIS —  Chamois aldermen held a special meeting on Monday, Feb. 26, to amend the city’s approved budget for the 2023-24 fiscal year. No explanation was given for why or how aldermen had been presented with an unofficial budget at the previous week’s regular meeting. At that time, aldermen amended the official budget and added $60,880.93 to the expense side of the ledger.

The 2023-24 budget estimated income of $262,277. Year-to-date numbers show income for the city of $266,778.38.

Based on year-to-date and anticipated expenses the city will need to pay before the end of the fiscal year, Treasurer Theresa Walter made the following recommendations.

Expense budget lines added were audit ($15,000), other accounting ($5,000), advertising ($600), election ($875), insurance ($5,300), legal fees ($10,000), locate fees ($450), membership fees ($200), municipal lights ($1,500), postage ($1,000), park operations ($1,500), part-time maintenance ($7,000), sewer testing ($3,000), special projects ($3,455.93), training ($2,000), and water electric ($4,000). The current budget estimated that expenses for the year would total $260,389.50.

The newly amended expenses for the 2023-24 budget will now total $321,270.43. Walter did not estimate what the additional income for the city might look like at the end of the fiscal year, so it is hard to tell exactly how far in the hole the city will be.

Mayor Marie Slusser and Walter explained in previous meetings that a big reason the amendment was needed to the audit line was that the city was behind on having the yearly audits finalized.

Chamois needed three audits completed in the same fiscal year to keep the water grant, each costing over $5,600. The additional $5,000 for the “other accounting” line could also be attributed to Walter, who is putting in extra hours to complete the audits on time. Some line items defied explanation, with no money budgeted for elections and diesel, and other items budgeted too low to make it through half of the year.

Whether some year-to-date expenses are correct is still in question.

Aldermen approved an amendment to an unofficial budget at their regular meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 20. Unterrified Democrat Reporter Theresa Brandt realized the board had not amended the official budget for the 2023-24 fiscal year and contacted Mayor Slusser about the mistake. Slusser, Walter, and City Clerk Meghan Birmingham could not explain where the budget numbers used for amendments came from during the regular meeting.

Brandt questioned some of the year-to-date expenses that were part of the unofficial budget. Slusser said that she understood what Brandt was talking about but didn’t elaborate or explain at the meeting.

“How are these numbers so far off?” Alderman Cole Schaben asked. “This is outrageous.”

Brandt asked Walter how far in the hole the city was at this point.

“To tell you the truth, I can’t answer that,” Walter said.

Brandt repeated that she did not believe some of the year-to-date expenses were correct.

“I know,” Slusser said.

Brandt asked for an explanation of what certain line items were for, including a line item for “Special Projects” with a year-to-date expense of $4,895.97. No one, including Slusser, Birmingham, and Walter, could explain the costs.

“I don’t know if we’ll ever know what happened,” Schaben said.

“The previous mayors we had did a lot of spending, and the books were off, so we have to do all of these audits and come up with all of this money, so we don’t lose our grants,” Slusser said. “The last two mayors buried us, and we are just trying to see daylight.”

Brandt questioned why the blame was placed on the past two mayors when aldermen approved the budget.

When Slusser continued to blame the mayors for the city’s financial problems, Brandt pointed out that both she and Alderman Jim Wright had been members of the board when the budget was approved.

Slusser said she didn’t remember going through any of the paperwork for the budget at that time.

“We’re trying our hardest to fix stupid,” Alderman Cheyanna Wolfe said.

After reviewing several line items that needed to be amended, Brandt restated that she was concerned because she thought some numbers may be inaccurate.

“I know these numbers are wrong,” said Slusser. “It’s hard to look at budget numbers if the numbers aren’t accurate.”

“We’re never going to know the real numbers,” Schaben said.

Brandt replied that the records were somewhere and could be tracked down.

Slusser responded that no one had filed for election, so no one knew what would happen or who would be on the board after the April election.

Walter was more optimistic.

“Things are changing,” Walter said. “We have things that are being put in place. Hopefully, we’ll be able to stop the excess spending.”

“We have already done that,” Slusser said. “No one buys toilet paper without me knowing about it. We aren’t using the credit card. Going forward, we are going to have to go without.”

“It’s a slow process, but we are trying,” Walter said. “We are doing the best we can with what we’ve got. We are trying to cut back on the spending.”

Aldermen approved the amendment to the unofficial budget, amending 26 line items and adding over $90,000 to the budget. These overages were to come out of city reserves.