Perry staff reports FY2026 budget health; council discusses April schedule and tentative FY2027 timeline

Miss Johnson presented a fiscal-year 2026 budget update to the Perry City Council on March 26, reporting collection and expenditure percentages across multiple funds and discussing next steps for the tentative FY2027 budget presentation.

Johnson said the general fund and most enterprise funds are tracking near expected levels for the fiscal year so far; she gave example metrics including property-tax collections near 68% and noted that nonoperating revenues and connection fees have come in higher than anticipated in some funds. She explained that fee-in-lieu receipts are held in a liability or improvement account (not counted as operating revenue) until they are applied to the specific capital project for which they were paid.

On sales tax, staff reported receipts are about 6.28% higher than planned year-to-date, and council asked whether staff could produce an industry-based analysis to estimate how much of that increase is attributable to new businesses versus base growth. Johnson said she can prepare an industry breakdown, but cannot disclose individual business contributions for privacy reasons.

Council members discussed scheduling the tentative FY2027 budget presentation amid conflicts: April 9 conflicts with a local convention and April 23 conflicts with the League of Cities and Towns conference. Staff said state code requires presenting the tentative budget by the first meeting in May, so the council agreed staff would email availability options and the mayor would choose a date if consensus is not reached.

Next steps: Staff will prepare the tentative FY2027 budget materials for presentation in April if a date can be found, or otherwise for presentation at the council’s first May meeting; staff also will consider an industry-based sales-tax breakdown on request.