Century Amends Last Year’s Budget To Match Actual Expenditures

November 3, 2021

The Century Town Council voted this week to amend the last fiscal year’s budget shortly after receiving a year-end financial report from their accountant.

For the town, it’s an annual action to balance the books after their fiscal year ends on September 30 — to make sure the prior year’s budget reflects a budgeted amount for what they actually spent.

The council approved a resolution amending the budget “to include the expenditure total as of September 30, 2021″, with no amount specified in the resolution or mentioned during the reading of the resolution. The resolution gave the mayor or his designee the authority to “take all actions necessary to implement the terms and conditions of this resolution”.

The council receives an emailed copy of their upcoming agenda and most supporting documentation by Friday afternoon before a meeting the following week, allowing council members time to review the items. A copy of the budget amending resolution was emailed October 29, but the financial report was not provided to the council by accountant Robert Hudson until the meeting. The report was seven pages, some of it in very small print.

“You are now saying that this is our new budget, our amended budget. You know we’ve done this pretty much every year,” Hudson told the council. “So we can have that to set up where…we’re not out of compliance with the end of the year budget whenever we pass this resolution.”

When questioned about the councils’ lack of time to review the year-end financial report prior to the meeting, Council President Luis Gomez replied that he would take the accountant’s word.

“These are the actual numbers that every bill list that went across this table are accounted for in this financial statement, ” Hudson said. “Nobody’s manipulating a budget. These are the actual numbers that came through, every check, every payroll, every piece of revenue.”

Pictured top: Century council members Dynette Lewis reviews a year-end financial statement presented to the council just prior to a meeting and vote. Pictured below: Accountant Robert Hudson explains the financials to the council. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.

Comments

7 Responses to “Century Amends Last Year’s Budget To Match Actual Expenditures”

  1. Oversight on November 4th, 2021 12:12 pm

    Town council members sound like they should all be in Congress and Hudson working for OMB. LOL!

  2. CJ Lewis on November 4th, 2021 9:13 am

    Shameful but business as usual in Century.

  3. Tres on November 3rd, 2021 9:14 pm

    Century needs to be dissolved. Not a resident and I’m even tired of hearing about them.

  4. jerry on November 3rd, 2021 9:17 am

    Century does it the easy way, they just spend aimlessly and at the end of the year, they budget for what they have spent. That way, they never run over budget. I wish that I could do that with my household budget. But then I am not spending tax payers money. Wow! What a great bunch of elected officials.

  5. judy on November 3rd, 2021 8:32 am

    Why, oh why do the people in Century put up with the crooks who run that town? Guess they either condone it or just flat out don’t care!!!

  6. Dennis HE Wiggins on November 3rd, 2021 6:56 am

    Hmmm. Doesn’t altering the budget at the end of the year defeat the ENTIRE purpose of budgeting? I mean, I thought the reason for budgeting was to allocate and plan what you can/will spend, not what you HAVE spent. . . . Reckon this would work with my household “budget?” “Enquiring minds want to know.”

  7. Fred on November 3rd, 2021 6:55 am

    Huh? Why would you do this? If your budget is based on analysis of needs, and prior performance, the analysis of variance of actual vs budget is a useful tool to see where adjustments are needed, anomalies or extraordinary problems might exist, and plan the future years. Very strange.

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News