Fixing the problems

Arceneaux-Mathis said she would like to see the budgeting process return to what it once was, with department heads presenting their individual budgets — including employee numbers, needs and wishes — to the full board.

Arceneaux-Mathis said she and Gray attended one of the meetings with the police, fire, engineering and public works department heads, but it wasn’t the first meeting those departments had this budget cycle.

“We were just listening to the end event of that discussion between those department heads, the mayor and Donnie Holloway,” she said. “This needs to be a scheduled meeting for the whole board, or at least for as many of us as can make it.”

Smith said in the future even if the board isn’t able to meet with the department heads, it should have representation at all of the meetings.

“The budget should be a written message about what we are trying to do, and it’s difficult to do that when you don’t have all the information,” she said.

Gray said the board would need to have a frank discussion about the failure to follow adopted policy.

“My only thing as a policy maker is that once you make policy and they don’t follow policy, what do you do?” he said. “This is what the board is going to have to decide.”

Fields said separate meetings, or work sessions, to simply discuss the budget need to be planned throughout the year and attended by all board members.

“Our meetings are jam packed already, so I don’t know that we should take up more discussions there, but I’m in favor of work sessions where the budget is the only item on the agenda,” Fields said. “There just needs to be more involvement, because I don’t like to feel rushed and it all felt very rushed for me this year.”

Fortenbery said a firm stance from the board on receiving reliable financial reports is needed to fix all budgetary issues.

“You can only do so much without the right numbers to look at, but it always seems like there’s an excuse as to why these numbers are off or why we don’t have those numbers yet,” Fortenbery said. “Maybe we all need to go sit on the front steps of city hall and not leave until they give us some answers on how to fix this.”

Dillard’s approach to a budget solution involves projecting incoming revenues conservatively and returning to revise or amend the budget later in the year once the board has a better understanding of how much the city will actually receive.

“The way we’re going now, we don’t get any decent information from (Holloway) until the end of the year and by then, you can’t stop the spending that’s gone over your revenues,” Dillard said. “The administration ultimately has the responsibility to bring forward a credible budget, but that’s not happened.”