The Joplin City Council held an informal session on Monday, March 16, 2026, at which three agenda items were presented: a financial update, a finance department update, and a downtown Joplin Alliance update. No formal votes or decisions were taken during the informal session.
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Jomplan City Council informal session for Monday, March 16, 2026. We have three items on our agenda for this evening. We'll begin with item number one financial update. Good evening, Mrs. Haas. Evening, Mayor, Council. Tonight I will present uh March Financials. Uh March sales tax was actually pretty good compared to March of last year. We're up three percent. So for the fiscal year, we're up three percent. Uh so that's good news, and uh just remember that really represents January sales. And then uh for use tax, not as good a news. Uh we're actually down uh compared to the same month last year by nine percent, but we're still up 11% for the year. And then uh marijuana. It's uh just about what it is every month, but it is a lot higher than the same month last year because last year we were seem to be having a lot of timing issues. Uh so we're up almost 45%, uh, but for the year we're up uh 13.65%. Any questions on uh any of the taxes? If not, I'll move to the general fund, uh, which is actually uh through February 28th, which is uh four months into the fiscal year or 33 percent. Uh operating revenue, uh you can see that uh right now we're coming in a little bit over budget. Uh operating expenditures were coming in under budget, which is good. So our uh net operating gain is better than anticipated. One time revenue is under budget, uh one time expenditures also under budget. Uh so you can see our total net gain is doing better than what we budgeted, but we still have four million dollars in outstanding encumbrances. And then uh you see the graph that you see every month, with the which again tells us that um the way that we're balancing our budget is with our one-time revenue. So any questions. Council. I see none. Hi. I think tonight it's my turn to give the finance department update. Uh so the finance department is really outlined in Article 4 of the charter. Um tells uh the specific duties of the department. So we need to maintain the accounting system on a fund basis in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles, also known as GAAP, and in compliance with the adopted budget. Uh we need to furnish monthly financial reports, which we do, uh, monitoring internal controls to make sure uh that we're reporting accurately, uh managing our active and idle funds, uh coordinating the financial functions of the city and providing administrative support to city management department heads and other city staff. Um I've told you before we spend about six months of the year working on budget, which is from April 1st to October 31st, and six months of the year working on audit, uh, which is November 1st to April 30th. And then our key functions include payroll, accounts payable, accounts receivable, purchasing, business license, fixed assets, utility billing and collecting, uh centralized cash receipts, grants, general ledger, uh sorry, general ledger, budget, and audit. Here's some of our key statistics. Um a lot of them are in line with previous years. So uh business licenses right on track, uh cash receipts up just a little bit, utility bills up some, uh payroll. Uh one of the biggest jumps that we see though is in accounts receivable. This is really due to a couple of things. Um you know that uh our streets are getting cut uh utility cuts a lot, and so we we bill for those, so uh some of the increases from that, but also um one of the the action plans has a lot to do with neighborhood improvement, and we've added uh neighborhood improvement officers, and so we've seen an increase in in bills as a result of that. Purchase orders pretty steady, and then just a little bit of an increase in AP checks. And as a reminder, we we have one person that does business license, cash receipts, really two employees, utility billing, we have two. Payroll, we have one. We have one person that does AR and purchasing, and one person that does AP checks. And here's our organizational chart. And here's my staff. And here's a listing of everyone and their years of service. I do have one position that's vacant right now, which is the accountant one. We have just opened that position, and we're hoping to pick up a recent graduate or somebody that's getting ready to graduate.