City Manager Jim Crosby, during a special work session of the Chickasha City Council on April 28, had some positive news about Chickasha’s city budget and the city audits.
“We are in excellent financial shape,” although “we will not make the anticipated money we budgeted,” he said.
Total income will be about $1 million to $2 million “short of our projections.” However, “Our expenditures are less than we expected,” he said. To date they are “about 69%” of what was projected.
Utility receipts “are doing well,” he said. “We should be up about 10% on that” when Fiscal Year 2025 ends on June 30.
“I predict that our city budget will be about 3% higher in FY 2026,” which starts July 1. “We may add one person, but we’re holding the line on personnel,” Crosby said.
Sales and use taxes constitute approximately 70% of the city’s General Fund, which finances general administrative operations of the municipality. The city’s General Fund is “about $27 million, more or less,” Finance Director Elaine Jensen told Southwest Ledger.
Crosby told the council the city’s Fiscal Year 2023 audit is “about 50% complete.” When it is finished the FY24 audit should take “about four months to complete.”
The long-awaited audit of the city’s financial records from Fiscal Year 2022 was completed in March, and although it was 26 months late “it was a clean audit,” Mayor Zach Grayson said. The City of Chickasha isn’t bankrupt.
While the audit was tardy and revealed some problems, the proverbial bottom line was positive. The city’s assets of $122.85 million were 38.585 times greater than the city’s liabilities of $3.18 million, according to accountants HSPG & Associates of Oklahoma City.
The city’s total net position increased by $5.6 million, and assets exceeded liabilities by$119.66 million. “Of this amount, $29.2 million … is available to meet the government’s ongoing needs,” HSPG reported.
FY22 concluded on June 30, 2022, and the audit of the city’s records was due by Dec. 31, 2022.
At the end of FY22, the city had $2.8 million in long-term debt outstanding, “which represented a decrease of about $742,000 from the prior year,” HSPG found.
The long-term debt picture will change dramatically in the future, though, because of a loan to finance a new water treatment plant and a multimillion-dollar debt incurred to buy two new fire trucks.
The Chickasha Municipal Authority secured a $67.7 million, 30-year loan from the Oklahoma Water Resources Board in July 2023 “for the purpose of constructing a water treatment plant” and “making improvements to the municipal water system,” HSPG noted.
Also, the City of Chickasha approved a “lease and option agreement” with First National Bank & Trust Co. in February on a $3.14 million note for the purchase of a 100-foot aerial truck and a 750-gallon pumper truck. The city will make 120 monthly rental payments at an annual interest rate of 4.75%.
In each case, “This lease/purchase item will not come on the books until delivery of the truck,” which is not expected for 34 to 38 months, and payments won’t start until approximately one year after delivery, Fire Chief Tony Samaniego told the City Council last year.