The Joplin City Council held an informal meeting on December 15, 2025, to discuss financial updates, downtown development initiatives, and proposed changes to the sewer assessment policy. City staff presented updates on tax revenues, year-to-date budget results, downtown activities and strategic planning, and modifications to the sewer assessment program to encourage residential infill.
Good evening and welcome to the informal meeting of the Joplin City Council for Monday, December the 15th, 2025. We have three items on the agenda. We will begin with item number one, financial information update. Good evening, Mrs. Haas. Good evening, Mayor Council. I'm going to present uh sales tax, use tax, marijuana, and then the general fund financials. Um December, which represents sales from October. Unfortunately, uh not as good as last year. In fact, uh we were down uh 9.8 percent. Uh so we are below budget. Um and actually uh while this is on a cash basis, um we have to actually record the first two months in 2025, and so that's going to put us below budget for 2025 by about 120,000, unfortunately. And then uh use tax uh, however, was pretty good compared to uh the same month for last year. We're up 22.4 percent. Uh so for the year we're up, we're up 18.6 percent. Marijuana, um it's about a normal month for marijuana, although the percentage is up a lot. Uh if you look at the same month for last year, this was a timing issue last year between December and January. Uh so it's pretty well in line with an average month, uh, but we're still above budget. Um questions on any of the taxes. If not, I'll move to the general fund financials. So I'm gonna present the preliminary October results. Uh we won't finish the fiscal year. Uh we should finish sometime in January. So uh this is um we close the 12th period and then we continue uh to make entries as we do the accruals, uh for instance for sales tax, uh franchise tax as uh invoices still come in. Uh so uh this is preliminary, it is by no means done. Uh but uh preliminarily for operating revenue, uh we finished above budget uh by about $525,000. Um we came in under budget on operating expenditures by about $635,000. Uh one-time revenue, we're above uh budget by about $930,000. And I should say this is the amended budget. Uh so this is after the year-end budget that I brought you. And then one-time expenditures, we're below budget, uh, which is mostly capital outlay. Below budget, so that like the fire trucks are still on order. Um so our total uh net gain at this point is $116,000. But you can see we still have we rolled over $3.3 million in encumbrances. So a lot of that's just timing. And then if we move to the November financials, uh so as a reminder, a lot of things that happen in November are actually for October, and they get recorded in October. Uh so a lot of the revenue uh belongs in October, a lot of the expenditures, uh the first payroll belongs in October, so November is always uh lagging. Uh so for revenue, uh we're we're below budget by about 53,000, which is not unusual. We're also below expenditures by about 790,000. We're way below um on one-time revenue, and the same with one-time expenditures. So uh through November, we have a net gain of almost 400,000, but that same amount in uh rolled encumbrances of 3.3 million. Uh so with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions on the financials. Council. Mrs. Carlin. So if I understand this correctly, then we have no, let's just say unspent money that went into reserves from last from year 24-25. Preliminarily, um, you know, we so it's hard to say where we're actually going to end up yet because I just now today booked the entry for the accrued sales tax and use tax marijuana. I have not booked the accrual for franchise. We're still booking grants, but invoices are still coming in. Uh so I just won't I won't know that until about you know February.