Byrnes Mill officials expect the city to bring in $844.76 more than it spends during the 2024-2025 fiscal year, according to a newly approved budget.
The budget projects the city’s revenue for the year will total $1,833,971.86 and its expenditures will be $1,833,127.10.
That’s $33,201.45 less than the city budgeted last fiscal year, which ran from July 1, 2023, through June 30.
Unanswered questions
The 2024-2025 budget was approved at the June 26 board meeting, but city officials refused to answer a question from the Leader about how individual Board of Alderpersons voted on the budget.
In addition, information about the vote wasn’t available on the city’s website on Monday, at Leader deadline, because the May 15 board meeting minutes were the most recent ones posted there.
The board’s vote on the budget was one of many questions Byrnes Mill officials refused to answer despite emails, phone calls and text messages from Leader staff members to Rob Kiczenski, the city’s mayor, and Melinda Benedict, who’s acting as the Byrnes Mill city clerk and city administrator.
In addition, the Leader editor asked the five board members who attended the Aug. 7 Board of Alderpersons meeting if they would answer basic questions about the budget, and all of them refused after the city’s attorney, Craig H. Smith of the Curtis, Heinz, Garrett & O’Keefe law firm in St. Louis, advised them against answering the questions. The board members who were at last week’s meeting and wouldn’t answer questions included Dennis Martin of Ward 1; Galen Harrison and Cindy Davies, both of Ward 2; and Mary Scheble and Nicole Pettis, both of Ward 3.
Pettis, who was appointed to the board last September, however, responded that she was new to the board and didn’t know anything.
Bob Prado of Ward 1 was absent from the meeting and did not reply to an email from the Leader editor asking if he would answer questions about the budget.
The city has posted its budget document to its website, which provides basic information about projected revenue and expenditures, but it doesn’t offer more specific details that city officials typically provide for news stories about budgets.
For example, the Byrnes Mill 2024-2025 budget document doesn’t indicate if the city is projected to have any money left in reserve funds, and city officials refused to answer that question.
During a discussion prior to approval of the budget, city officials indicated it was possible that city employees would not get pay raises, for at least the second year in a row, but the budget document doesn’t make it clear whether employees got pay increases, and city officials would not answer that question either.
The new budget includes a $125,000 expenditure for street improvements, but city officials declined to specify if that expense was for general street repairs and maintenance or for a larger capital improvement project or projects.
In addition, the budget document listed a transfer of $100,000 to the miscellaneous revenue category, but city officials refused to say where those funds were being transferred from.
Revenue vs expenditures
According to the budget document, the city’s largest source of revenue is expected to be sales tax, which is projected at $690,000 for this fiscal year, followed by $165,000 in vehicular sales tax revenue.
The city’s largest expenditure, according to the budget document, will be for employee wages and benefits, which will total an estimated $1,208,719.91. Of that, $769,316.40, or 63.6 percent, of the city’s expenses for wages and benefits will be for Byrnes Mill Police Department personnel.
Recycling Center
The new budget calls for the city to spend $59,501.92 to operate the Recycling Center this fiscal year, which is $25,379.44 less than was spent on it last year.
At their Aug. 7 meeting, board members once again discussed the possibility of closing the Recycling Center for good to save money but decided to make repairs needed to get it operating again and reopen it for the time being.
The Recycling Center had been closed since July 25 because of a “significant equipment failure,” the city’s Police Department announced on its Facebook page that day.
However, the city posted on its website that the Recycling Center was scheduled to reopen on Aug. 8. Its operating hours are from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, although it is closed from noon to 12:30 p.m. each of those days for lunch.