EID board presses for clearer year-to-date financials before finalizing 2027 draft budget

The Goshen Downtown Economic Improvement District board spent the opening of its meeting pressing staff for clearer financial reporting to reconcile budget printouts with detail lines and to show what funds remain available year to date. Chair led the request, saying the board needs a report that lays out "we spent this much and this much and this much since last time, and here's where we are in relation to our year." The board asked staff to produce accumulated numbers and to clarify whether unspent funds from prior years had been encumbered for specific projects.

Members said existing reports are difficult to compare with account-level detail. One committee member said they have seen prior reports that included accumulated numbers and that the current printout is "not super helpful for me as a tool." Staff agreed to locate underlying detail, reconcile contractual services and maintenance lines (landscape, snow removal) and return with a year-to-date reconciliation to guide 2027 decisions. The chair noted the 2027 draft budget was kept close to this year’s figures and that they had "earmark[ed] $20,000 for more of the bulk program," an allocation the board said they will confirm after receiving clarified spending data.

Next steps: staff will prepare a reconciled report showing year-to-date expenditures, whether prior-year surpluses were rolled into the general fund or encumbered for projects, and the board will use that information to finalize budget priorities for planter work and other operational lines.