SIMPSON

MARQUETTE — The Marquette City Commission approved a deficit elimination plan for its street fund for fiscal year 2019. Monday evening during its meeting at City Hall where the public was not in attendance due to current executive orders.

Commissioner Pete Frazier motioned to approve the resolution of the deficit elimination plan and Mayor Pro Tem Jenn Hill seconded it. In a roll call vote, the commission voted 7-0 to approve the new business item.

“Due to the timing of the fiscal year 2019 construction projects, expenditures relating to those projects were incurred prior to the receipt of applicable bond proceeds,” the city agenda document states. When the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2019, the Major Street Fund and the Local Street Fund had deficits of $505,607 and $272,808, respectively.

Each year, the city of Marquette conducts its normal construction projects beginning in the summer and to complete those projects, bonds are issued to pay for expenses, Chief Financial Officer Gary Simpson said. However, those bonds weren’t issued until October and the fiscal year had already ended, he noted.

“… The funding didn’t come through until later, so that kind of made our financial statements look a little quirky … in our major and local street funds. The total fund balance is OK, it’s just that one component of the fund balance showed to be in a negative position and the state just has a rule that if that happens, the city commission has to approve a deficit elimination plan,” Simpson said. “So it’s really just more of a housekeeping item, but it is a state rule we had to comply with and it was just really strictly a timing issue.”

The amended plan transfers assets from the 2020 general fund to remove the nearly $800,000 deficit.

“The state wants us to make sure that, first of all we’re aware of it, and that we have a plan because the state doesn’t want to see the city of Marquette going bankrupt, so the state’s just trying to make sure we’re aware of what’s going on,” Simpson added.