This is part six of a series of articles examining the City of Salem’s General Fund budget for FY 2023-2024, with a focus on expenditures.
Most of the expenditures contained within the General Fund are divided up into categories specific to each department. However, some costs associated with the city’s services and departments are not for one single department, but actually are used to benefit multiple departments. Expenditures in this category fall under non-departmental expenditures. City Administrator Sally Burbridge visited with The Salem News to talk about the expenses and the purpose of the category.
What are non-departmental expenses?
“Expenses that maybe cover the city as a whole or cover multiple departments. So, it’s not an expense that is clearly ‘oh, that’s an electric utility expense,’” said Burbridge. “Broad things, things like the website, that services all departments of the city. That’s going to be a non-departmental expense.”
For the FY 2023-2024 budget, the city budgeted $363,942 in expenditures for a variety of purposes. That amount is $11,628 less than the previous budget.
“To me, the website is like a perfect example. A lot of advertising might be that way, depending on what it is,” said Burbridge.
The city’s website is indeed a prime example of a non-departmental expenditure. The site’s cost to maintain cannot be attributed to any single department, as the website serves all entities within the city government. Burbridge said advertising for the city works in a similar way. Advertising has its own line item within non-departmental expenditures, under Miscellaneous, with $4,500 budgeted for that purpose. The city is often required to run public notices in the local press, such as the Salem Public Water System’s Consumer Confidence Report.
“Different departments have specific things like that that we’re required to put out,” said Burbridge.
Clerical and custodial costs are also budgeted for out of this category. Clerical refers to clerical and other office work done that benefits multiple departments, and custodial costs are for cleaning costs organization-wide.
“Clerical, again, if it’s somebody that the work that they normally do benefits multiple departments, that’s clerical. It’s going to be making copies, and it’s going to be just general menial type tasks. Custodial, same thing. That doesn’t benefit just one department. Like, if they’re cleaning the admin building, that’s not just one department that benefits from that.”
Also under the non-departmental banner is a line item titled “Building inspector 50%”. According to Burbridge, this item is in non-departmental partly due to the wide range of duties performed by the building inspector, Jarred Brown.
“Because he does have his own budget, but the revenue on it is not enough to pay for [itself], so he’s put 50% under non-departmental. With his building inspection, say it’s new construction, then there’s an electrical component, so he works with the electric crew on what needs to be and make sure it’s up to code and everything. He works with the water and wastewater department on those connections, and hookups,” said Burbridge.
Other than personnel costs for positions which benefit multiple departments, it also includes budgets for supplies (Chemical--$50, Computer--$3,000, Janitorial--$2,000, Office--$5,000, and Tools—100), which are needed by multiple departments. There is a total of $10,150 budgeted for supplies.
Maintenance is also included in the budget to the tune of $10,435. Building maintenance, Equipment Maintenance, Public Grounds Maintenance, and Vehicle Maintenance are included under the maintenance category, all of which benefit multiple city departments.
The previously mentioned Advertising category is not the only Miscellaneous expenditure. Also included are Assessor’s Commission, which has to do with the relationship between the City and the County for collection of taxes, though Burbridge could not give an exact purpose for the line item. $5,500 is budgeted for the Assessor’s Commission.
Books and Periodicals are for industry or other publications needed for reference by the city government.
“You’ll notice we didn’t spend anything last year. If any of us need to order or have on-hand technical manuals, books specifically to what we do, and occasionally we do need it,” said Burbridge.
Fuel, cleaning expenses, general insurance, travel costs, and several other expenses fall under Miscellaneous, most with very small amounts budgeted, with the exception of General Insurance at a price tag of $65,000.
Special Services, a line item within Miscellaneous, includes $13,000 for an annual audit, money for planned phone system work in the future, legal fees, IT services, and Flood Plain Administration services through the MRPC.
A Membership line item, with $5,000 budgeted under Miscellaneous, is “mainly for MRPC”, according to Burbridge.
Also under Miscellaneous are several line items which have been zeroed out. Most of these items, which had money earmarked in the last budget, have to do with what is called “Community Support”. According to Burbridge, Community Support refers to causes or organizations within the community that the Board of Aldermen wish to support, such as Project Graduation, Council for a Healthy Dent County, the Dent County Extension, the Dent County Museum, and other local community groups. In the past, the amounts given to each organization were contained withing their own line items within the budget. However, going forward, Burbridge says that organizations will have to submit a yearly application for support, and the Aldermen will make the determinations based on cash available and the priorities officials have for the community that year. She made the point that government personnel and elected officials change over time, leading to changing priorities and interests, and that this method introduces oversight and review rather than simply passing the line items with the rest of the budget without much scrutiny.
The non-departmental expenditures also take into account utility costs for city facilities that serve multiple departments, like the Administration building. There is $37,468 budgeted for utilities, including electric, gas, sewer, water, and telephone. This amount has risen from the 2022-2023 budget, which showed $29,100 in expenditures.
The final category within non-departmental expenditures is labeled “Capital Improvements”. Capital Outlay—Code Book, one of the two line items within, are zeroed out. The other line item (Capital Outlay—Website Development) has $6,500 budgeted, unchanged from the last budget.
Next week, in the final part of the series, we will take a look at City Administrator, Mayor/Board, Finance, and City Clerk.
