Interim budget reflects early projects

The city of Amherst’s interim budget for next year’s first quarter, which already is smaller than last year, is taking into account city projects that were postponed from last year.

Mayor Mark Costilow said during a Nov. 16 City Council Finance Committee meeting that although the budget is $74,000 less than last year, the interim budget largely remains similar to previous years, with some departments seeing a spike in funding for the beginning of 2021.

A fund with an increase is the contracts and professional services fund, which reflects projects that the city plans to tackle early in the early that otherwise would have been completed in 2020.

“We held off on a lot of things we might have done this year because of the worries of COVID and how it was gonna affect our budget,” Costilow said.

The Information Technology (IT) Department was stacked with funding that is more than sufficient for the beginning of the year, as well as a decrease in software spending, since those issues were mainly resolved in 2020.

“It’s more than sufficient to get us through,” Costilow said.

Other funds that have seen a spike in monies include utility office expenses, to $461,000 from $417,000, and water improvements, to $115,000 from $60,000.

“I think we find from year-toyear, a lot of things start happening earlier in the year and it seems like were really cutting it close,” Costilow said of the utility expenses.

As for water improvements, this also includes projects that were postponed from 2020.

The Auditor’s office received an additional $25,000 for a salary study to be done with surrounding cities.

Auditor Derek Pittak said he has been speaking with the mayor about doing the study since he started his term with the city.

The study would include an indepth look of all the salaries of city employees and compare them to other salaries in the county.

Pittak said one of two ways the city could conduct the study is to do it manually by email blasting other city governments.

The other way is to bring someone in to conduct the study themselves.

Pittak said he’s started researching and will have a better idea of how much funding will be needed when the city’s final budget is due to the county auditor in February.

He also will return to Council for approval of the study and its funding, being that if the study is more than $25,000, the city probably wouldn’t do it.

“I think there’s probably a pretty wide range from the estimate perspective,” Pittak said.

The interim budget, due to the county auditor by Dec. 31, was approved by Council after suspending the rules during a Nov. 23 meeting.