Hoover mayor cuts $4 million from 2018 budget proposal, ready for council vote

Hoover Mayor Frank Brocato and his staff have been whittling away at the $131 million 2018 budget he proposed to the City Council on Sept. 5, and he’s ready to present a revised budget for a vote by the City Council Thursday night.

Brocato said he and his staff, working with the council, have cut about $4 million worth of expenditures from the original $114 million general fund budget he proposed.

There still may need to be some money transferred from the capital projects budget to the general fund to support operations, but he feels good about the progress they made in cutting expenses, he said.

“I truly feel like we’ve got a good, solid budget that will meet the needs of our community, keep us in good financial shape and allow us to add to our reserves,” Brocato said. “Our goal is to have a completely balanced budget, and we know that revenues are slightly down, so we need to rein in expenditures as much as we can.”

After the mayor presented his original budget on Sept. 5 and some council members said more cuts were needed, the mayor asked each department to cut their operating budget by 10 percent, he said. “They came back and did that,” he said.

They examined everything from travel, training and supplies to find places to cut, he said.

The original proposed budget anticipated $111 million in revenues for the general fund in fiscal 2018, which starts Oct. 1. That’s because revenues for 2017 are coming in about $1.6 million less than the $112.3 million that was expected in the original 2017 budget passed in February.

Chief Financial Officer Melinda Lopez has called the 2018 budget a conservative “wait-and-see” budget.

Total 2018 revenues for all governmental funds, including capital projects and special revenue funds, were estimated to come in at about $120 million.

The mayor’s original budget allocated $10.6 million for capital projects, including $2 million for paving projects throughout the city, $1.5 million for improvements to South Shades Crest Road, $1.4 million for an upgrade of the city’s information technology system, $1 million for replacing the drainage system and turf at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium and $500,000 for a new police training facility.

Brocato said he and City Administrator Allan Rice have been meeting with council members individually about the budget to address any questions or concerns they have. They believe they have answered all the questions, but council members will have another opportunity Thursday to ask more questions if they wish, Brocato said.

Council President Gene Smith said he hasn’t talked with other council members about changes made in the budget, but he believes there is a 75 to 80 percent chance the budget will be passed Thursday night.

He still has some questions about some of the community service agreements with outside agencies and wants to make sure all those agencies actually serve Hoover residents, he said. However, he believes that, as a whole, the mayor has been very prudent with the budget, he said.

Concerns about transferring money from the capital projects fund to support operations are really unmerited, Smith said.

“People are looking at that wrong,” he said. “It’s taxpayer money left over from the year before.”

It is leftover money that has not yet been earmarked for specific capital projects and was put in the capital projects fund more for accounting purposes, Smith said. It can be spent on either capital projects or the general fund if needed, he said.

Smith said he wishes there was enough money in the budget to give city employees a cost-of-living adjustment, but the money just isn’t there.

He would have liked a little more time to look at changes being recommended by the mayor, but he thinks the council will get the budget passed Thursday night.

Brocato is hopeful that is the case. “We’re committed to having a budget on time,” he said.

The City Council's special action meeting to consider the budget is scheduled to occur right after the council's regular 5 p.m. work session on Thursday, Sept. 28.