On April 23, 2026, the Annapolis Finance Committee held a special meeting to review the proposed FY27 budgets for the Department of Finance and the Office of Emergency Management (OEM). The meeting was called to order at 8:46 AM, recessed at 9:40 AM, reconvened at 9:48 AM, and adjourned at 10:44 AM. Acting Finance Director Pallikal and OEM Director Simmons presented their respective budgets, followed by committee questions and discussion. Several action items were identified for follow-up.
Department of Finance FY27 Budget Presentation – Acting Finance Director Pallikal, along with Acting City Manager Buckland, Senior Budget Analyst Johnson, and Budget Analyst Turner, presented the department's accomplishments (clean audit, on-time budget delivery, SOP development), performance measures, and budget enhancements—primarily converting a contractor payroll manager to a full-time position. Key discussion points included:
Office of Emergency Management (OEM) FY27 Budget Presentation – Director Simmons and Deputy Director Mandell presented accomplishments (a $35.5 million FEMA grant, winter storm response with 745 calls, 72% reduction in total overdoses since 2020). They highlighted the department's heavy reliance on federal grants (historically $624,000 to $583,000) and the uncertainty of FY25 grant funding (not yet received). The proposed budget moves three grant-funded positions (two emergency management planner positions and one training/outreach position) into the general fund at a cost of $224,000 and $108,974 respectively, to avoid layoffs. Other non-personnel enhancements included a hazard mitigation plan ($60,000) and training/exercise funding ($13,000). A request for a $21,000 radio maintenance plan was not funded. Committee discussion included:
Maybe the finance planning committee is called the order at 8 46 a.m. on April 23rd. I hope everyone had a nice earth day yesterday. Um start off roll call Otter Roman O'Neill. Are you with us? Present. We can hear Alderman Thorpe. Present. Alderman Huntley's here. We also are joined today by Otto Roman Conti. And uh is there a motion to approve the agenda as written? So move. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Is there a motion to approve the minutes from yesterday's meeting? So moved. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Mr. Pellico, floor is yours. We'll put 15 minutes on the clock. You could just swap the mics, they move. It might be easier to move the mics to move yourself. Okay. So don't count this on his time, Kaylin. All right, good morning. Um just wanted to quickly highlight Sean Doyle and Karen Ajay, who's sitting back behind me in uh support of the finance department, but I will uh get going through the presentation here. Um, oh, and Darren, who's our wonderful budget analyst. Uh and so want to just jump in, start with our fiscal year 26 accomplishments, a lot to be proud of here. Uh we were able to get a clean audit opinion on both the ACFAR and the single audits. We completed the fiscal year 2025 audits with within the extension timelines, uh despite multiple staff vacancies, as has been communicated. Uh we delivered the 2027 proposed budget on time to the city council on April 13th. Uh, and then while also maintaining and uh enhancing core delivery across the accounting team, payroll budgeting and treasury operations. Uh we have since we arrived, also provided and worked with the team on building 50 standy 50 plus standard operating procedures for the finance department to start building that durability and resilience in the department going forward. And uh we are really highly focused on the Annapolis Works initiative and uh increasing our customer service levels by staffing vacant positions to support residents and internal stakeholders. Uh our team has been heavily involved in this budgeting process as we've discussed around some of this uh changes in centralization for ITS and central services, and so working closely with those teams and other departments to make that shift. And then in preparation of our move to the Shaw Street office, we've uh really taken significant efforts in cleaning the office vault and moving out physical paperwork in accordance with regulations. And so there's been a lot going on in these last few months and really proud of everything the team's been doing to uh move the needle forward. Uh speaking to our performance measures, uh, these are performance measures that have been historically included with the budget process. We submitted the same ones uh as last year to keep a consistent flow. Uh won't necessarily go through all of them unless if you'd like me to, but they are here, they listen in the budget book, but really focused on a lot of transactional activity and just ensuring that the team is operating at a high level of issue efficiency with regards to processing transactions, uh evaluating spending, and then also um making sure that we're working towards a better future with electronic uh type payments versus physical payments. Um budget enhancements, we really had only one significant one. Uh as you all are aware, we've been making a transition here within our payroll process and HRS system from using the standard MUNIS payroll system to a NeoGov system. And in doing that, we wanted to enhance our payroll centralization. And so uh we've recently had brought on a uh employee in a contractor capacity.