At its June 10 meeting, the Janesville City Council gave permission to Daulton Lotten to perform maintenance work on the pavilion at Lakeview Park, located by the baseball field, as part of his Eagle Scout project.
The pavilion is need in some slight repairs, as it has some paint damage and other damage.
“There’s not a ton of actual structural damage,” Lotten said of the pavilion. “”It’s mostly just appearance, which I think would be very beneficial to the city.”
Lotten already has a private donor supplying the paint for the project, so he asked for $150 from the city for lumber and extra supplies. Janesville Public Works Director Joe Ziemke noted that the city has helped out eagle scouts in the past with their projects, with the city giving up to $250 a project.
City council member Jim Mulcahey thought it was a commendable project Lotten is doing and motioned to have the city pay Lotten up to $250 for the project and have it be supervised by Ziemke. Johnson seconded the motion.
W. North speed limit
The council also talked about a possible speed limit sign on W. North Street, as a resident requested to have one put up, since they have seen a few situations where people are driving faster than 30 miles per hour.
Rogers stated that the road’s speed limit is 30 miles per hour, because it’s the state statute standard for a street with no signs posted. While there are four “Children at play” signs, due to the proximity of North Street Park, there are no speed limit signs.
While he was not opposed to adding a sign, Councilor Andy Ahlman asked if the council can direct staff to do more patrolling on the street. Mulcahey agreed with Ahlman and said, if having more patrol on the street doesn’t correct the problem, then the council can visit it again at a later date.
Financial audit
The Janesville City Council went over its 2023 audit report at the June 10 meeting.
Kelsey Larson, a senior associate with accounting and consulting services company Abdo, went through the audit with the council and city staff.
Larson started off her presentation of the audit saying that Janesville has a limited segregation of their duties, but she stated that this is common for a city of its size. It would be hard for Janesville to properly segregate duties, due to the small office size.
The only key concern Larson had about the city’s audit was the general funds. The city’s overall business funds are doing pretty good, but the general fund needs a little more work, according to Larson.
“I think the main area of concern is going to be your general fund and trying to get that unassigned fund balance back up above your policy,” Larson said to the council.
The city’s unassigned fund balance policy calls for the balance to sit at 35% or more of the city’s annual expenses. The balance ended up at 34.3% at the end of 2023. The balance percentage has been trending downward since 2019 when it was at 55.5%.
Larson told the council that, in order to get above the 35% rate again, the city has to look at its expenses and see if they can be brought down. Larson and City Administrator Clinton Rogers agreed that they would like to see the city’s fund balance at around 40%.
The city’s revenues in 2023 came in under budget by about $170,000, with the city budgeting their revenues for the year at $2.11 billion and receiving $1.94 million. The main contributed to the city’s revenue being under budget was due to the city not receiving fire state aid due to failing to file the submission for it on time.
The city ended up spending less than calculated for their expenditures, with budgeting for $2.1 million and spending at $1.96 million. That still wasn’t enough to make up for the revenues coming in under budget, with an overall deficit of $32,580.
Larson and Rogers also noted that, due to debt service, the city does not have too much wiggle room to do big projects in the next ten years.
“If you’re looking at street projects and such, this is definitely somewhere to look if you want to keep that debt service levy the same,” Larson said to the council about a debt service chart included with the audit.
Rogers told the council that they will talk about the city’s capital improvement plan in next month’s meeting.
“We’re probably going to have to wait a few years for another project,” Rogers said.
Larson went over the city’s funds which include water sewer, storm sewer, light and power, nursing home, and golf course.
The light and power fund’s disbursements were pretty high for 2023, as the city had major repairs in the last two years and receipts have been coming in lower for them. The city recently did a rate study for light and power though, so the rates will go up in the next five years.
The council voted to approve the audit unanimously, with Andy Ahlman making a motion and Sarah Johnson seconding it.
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