Combined departments under budget so far, city official says

“Brad has the most complicated budget in the city,” said Wyman Morgan, the city’s director of finance and administration.

Brad Baldwin, the city’s director of engineering and public works, said he handles that budget just like a household budget — but on a larger scale.

The city merged its public works, engineering and airport departments last summer.

Baldwin and his staff still prepare separate budgets for each department, but officials must wait until the end of this year to determine if the merger brought financial success.

Baldwin said he added several line items to the 2019 public works budget, items that officials previously recorded as “miscellaneous.”

He found these costs to include expenditures such as supplies to clean city offices and tires for the trucks in the maintenance shop.

“We don’t know how many tires we’ve bought through the years,” Baldwin said.

“I hate ‘miscellaneous,’” he continued. “Now, when the City Council asks questions, we can give them an answer.”

The 2019 engineering budget is $709,000, Morgan said. Public works is $8.3 million.

Both departments spent less than their budgets allotted in 2018, Morgan continued. Engineering was $75,000 under budget, and public works, $2.7 million.

The 2019 budget for airport maintenance was set at $356,000, Morgan said. Roughly the same amount comes each year from rent on the hangars, he explained.

In 2018, the City Council set the airport budget at $383,000, but the city spent $2.2 million, Morgan reported. The city received an FAA grant to repave the runway, he explained.

The airport budget expands in the years the city receives grants.

Baldwin reported recently that most of his public works departments have spent less than 10 percent of the 2019 allotment.

“But we haven’t hit summer,” Baldwin cautioned. “We do a lot in the summer.”