Budget committee says $4.5M for Brennan Center will be documented in closing resolution

The Budget, Finance and Audit Standing Committee advanced council changes that include $4.5 million earmarked for renovations tied to the Brennan Center, with staff saying the administration will document the funding in the closing resolution.

Earl Corley, a city budget official, told the committee that council combined two line items (198 and 199) and placed $4,500,000 on them. A council member asked whether that amount would be found by the administration or added as a one-time general-fund appropriation. "When we're putting it in our closing resolution, it's because it's funding that was already included in the...capital budget," an administration official identified in the meeting as Mr. Johnson said. He said $3,000,000 of the $4.5 million is already in the current capital budget and had been set aside for the new Brennan Center construction, while $1,500,000 will come from next year's capital allocation.

Mr. Johnson said the administration will set the dollars aside under distinct project numbers in the ERP (enterprise resource planning) system so that funds will appear as separate line items rather than a lump sum. "We will make sure that we set aside those dollars specifically for this use," he said.

Corley and council members discussed the accounting implications: moving $1.5 million into the Brennan Center earmark will reduce other subdivisions of the $8.1 million general services (GSD) park-development pot unless the administration restores funds later. Council members pressed staff to record the specific prior uses of the $1.5 million, and Mr. Johnson replied the amount had been intended for the Parks and Recreation Improvement Plan (PIP), a rolling five-year plan that phases park and rec investments.

Why it matters: the committee is reconciling council priorities with the administration's proposed budget; staff said this action mostly earmarks existing appropriations rather than increasing the dollar total of the proposed budget. Mr. Johnson and Corley said they would provide the exact funding sources and show the earmark in the closing documentation so the council and the public can trace where the dollars came from.

Next steps: staff committed to providing the detailed funding sources for the committee to review and to load the earmarks into the electronic budget so they appear on funds-availability reports. The committee did not take a separate roll-call vote on this earmark; the administration indicated it will include the change in its closing resolution.