Town finances looking good

Clerk/Treasurer Cheryl Schneider reported Moorcroft’s position to date (about 5.5 months into the 2020/2021 fiscal year) at a budget meeting on Monday night. She expressed relative comfort with the numbers, saying the town is currently at approximately 44% of the budget and 41% of the water and sewer enterprising accounts.

“There is nothing alarming as of yet,” she said.

Unbudgeted expense

With that said, the town is currently operating under another town’s water and sewer license. That agreement will end in a couple of months, pushing Moorcroft’s Public Works Department to test and license a couple of the crew.

This mandated licensing was not budgeted this year, but will have to come out of those accounts within the next few months. Two of the public works crewmen will take the tests; however, director Cory Allison has been refused the opportunity to take the sewer examination completely as he does not, in the state’s opinion, possess sufficient active work experience with the routine. He hopes, though, to take the water test.

Unanticipated revenue

There is $8486 left from the sale of the former VFW building. This unanticipated revenue of $52,000 has been very helpful to the town over the last few months, paying for, among other things, the new restrooms at Noonan Park. With the remaining money, the town will pay for the gravel used to create a sound base on which to build the restrooms.

Powder River Energy paid to Moorcroft $14,353.

“This goes back to their franchise fees,” explained Schneider. “They caught a mistake from 2017 so that is unanticipated revenue.”

The police department has been looking for funding to lease a new body camera system and this money could possibly facilitate this plan. Having watched the demonstration of the system, Claar advocated the expenditure for the program, “I think it’s a needed replacement and a huge improvement.”

No-show

The town has not, as yet, received the nearly $200,000 state pandemic funds that had been approved to cover wages for sick and vacation time for town employees a couple of months ago and, with no transaction date provided by the State Land and Investment Board (SLIB), the governing body is hesitant to actively allocate any funds until they have the cash in hand.

Tightening the belt

Councilman Dale Petersen brought up the possible end of the state’s monetary assistance in the future, saying, “Whenever they may meet, they’re not going to be in favor of raising any type of revenue stream. We need to be proactive.”

In this vein, he suggested each department head search their budgets for a 10% cut in the coming fiscal year.

Next week

Deidre Budahl of the Rapid City office of Casey Peterson Ltd, Moorcroft’s CPAs and auditors, discussed with council via phone at the subsequent meeting the annual full audit that will be necessary due to the town receiving federal funds for projects. These findings will be further discussed next week.