Geary city council met in regular session Thursday. All members were present except Cory Hicks.
Much of the meeting was taken up by discussion of the city’s budget, both a review of the end of the fiscal year on June 30 and the beginning of the new fiscal year.
The balance sheet showed the utility fund with $136,000, up $46,000 from the month prior and the general fund with $107,000, up $24,000 from the previous month. However, that news was tempered by the fact that June had three payrolls to be met and there was a $35,000 expense/ purchase at the utility authority.
The city utilities department faced a fuel cost increase in June as well as spending $40,000 in capital outlay. The trash department showed a monthly income of $16,000 and $189,000 income for the year just ended.
Breaking down the general fund income, sales tax brought in $79,000 in June and an annual income of $883,000. Oil and gas income provided another $3,000 to the city coffers. Both the parks and fire departments showed heavy expenditures for the month just ended, with $11,000 life guard training and $2,000 in asphalt costs for parks and $1,100 to test the fire hoses.
Overall, this was the second month in a row with the funds generally good cash flow. “It feels like we’re going in the right direction,” said Chase Phillips, who handles the city accounting for RS Meacham. “I’m liking it.”
Terryl Allen provided the police report, as he is still serving as interim chief of police. He noted there had been 77 traffic stops resulting in 33 written tickets. Allen said the department was down by three officers and two dispatchers had resigned. However, a new officer was recently certified.
“One of the problems is we’re still hanging up in the air about a chief,” said council member Rocky Coleman. There have been two new applications received recently, Allen said.
“But everyone has been short since COVID,” Allen said. “We’re constantly rebuilding.”
Sandra Cleveland said she and the rest of the council appreciated the job Allen was doing as interim chief. “It’s not going unnoticed,” chimed in Mayor Waylan Upchego.
In other business, the council entered into executive session to discuss police personnel. It emerged to name Francisco Leyva as a part time patrol officer. He had previously served as a sergeant, but will no longer do so, although his rate of pay remains the same as a part time officer. Dispatchers Brandy Myers, Daysha Pratt, Felicia Daukei, Tonya Olsen, Carman Littleraven and Brooke Ward were approved as full employees. It was unclear whether any of those are among the dispatchers who have tendered resignations.
Upon moving to the Geary Utilities Authority meeting, the council balked at approving the Department of Environmental Quality monthly water report, due to the absence of public works director Tommy Lewis. The other various reports and release of checks to meet expenses were approved.
There was a bit of unforeseen business though. Shannon McClair, the clerk treasurer of Greenfield, pointed out that recently Geary had been charging Greenfield for water at the residential rate rather than at a flat rate. No copy of a contract since 2005 could be located and no record of a rate increase could be located, either.
Amy Wood, who was filling in for Geary city clerk/treasurer Paula Reding, said she would pull the Greenfield account to check the rates and the updates to the contract. McClair said Greenfield was supposed to have been notified of the rate for the upcoming year in February, but there had been no notification as of June 30, and rates were increased in January.
She did concede she had only been in office a year but wanted the appropriate contract to be followed.
“So we need to do some investigation,” Cleveland said. “You (Wood and McClair) work on that together and report back to us.”
Coleman asked the matter be placed on the next council agenda and Wood promised to scour the vault to locate the contract, since a previous city clerk had wiped the entire contents of some office computers.
Upchego urged staff to work diligently on the matter, saying “We don’t want to be in breach of any contracts.”