We're good, Brad.

All right, good morning, everybody.

Welcome back.

Um today we've got four hearings that are our conversations around the financial arm of the corporation.

Um we're starting off this morning with the Bureau of Accounts.

Um I am joined by Counselor Zarinric, Jones Rouser, Moore Nave, President Paniagua, um, Councillor Monto, and then Nestry and Kristen Bennett from our finance department.

Um we're gonna start off on page eighty nine.

Uh but before we kind of jump into the numbers, do you want to just give us an overview of what you're doing while we're here?

Uh certainly.

Um arguably to me one of the most critical and uh very important as we move forward with the next couple weeks of discussions around the budget and our fiscal sustainability.

Yeah, hi, good morning.

Um thank you for that nice introduction.

Yes, I'm Diane Nestry, and I've stepped up as the commissioner of finance uh just this past month.

So new in the role, but I've been around the city of Syracuse since twenty sixteen.

Uh very excited about this opportunity, and I'm already amazed at all of the things that the team is capable of and does being in this seat, I'm seeing a lot of how we work as a team, and I just wanted to give uh an appreciation of all the efforts that the team is making.

Um yeah, we we're gonna go over Bureau of Accounts.

This is where all the transactions for the city of Syracuse is accounted for in our uh finance system.

We also oversee all of the bank accounts and transactions.

Um as well as doing any reconciliations and helping set up projects.

Um we also did a slight reduction in one of our vacant positions for the deputy commissioner.

This was a new role last year that we presented to you uh to the counselors and to the mayor's office to be funded.

We have not yet filled it.

Um change by anything.

Yep, we're maintaining.

We are maintaining um we were just able to reduce some of the salary lines.

Okay.

And I yeah.

Is that because there's new people?

Like um no, uh, we've had two vacancies in BOA as out an accountant three and an accountant one.

Uh we funded the accountant one.

We're only funding for one accountant three instead of two this year.

We've also reduced, like I had mentioned that deputy commissioner salary as well as the commissioner's salary.

Okay.

And if you definitely, if you want a more detailed comparison, I can definitely send something up after this meeting.

I thought it would just later was wrong.

Oh because I mean you you win now.

Well, if you want to give us more funding, we will take it and we will run it.

Thank you.

Has the deputy position been um open?

This was created last year in the budget, however, I I uh it for about a year.

It's been open for about a year.

The um out of title pay, what would that be used for?

What would someone be doing out of title?

Um, I know some of that covers for the interim commissioner or um because I'm stepping outside of my role.

I'm the assistant uh director of BOA.

So um some of that is covering the change in uh responsibilities.

Yeah.

Oh I think we have a few one other staff that is in transition going from one title to another.

So that is also to make up for that uh pay variance.

So I think we've got a half an hour, and what are we looking at?

We're looking at your budget going down by a little bit.

And I think rather than for me to jump into the numbers and why did that change that change that change?

Um you know what I want to think about is the fact that overall I think that departments, including you know, including your own, have done a really good job of limiting year over year increases.

I think that we have a fairly responsible budget in front of us.

Um yet we still have a situation where our expenses are increased at a at a much more at a much more rapid rate than our revenues.

Um you talk a little bit about what you're trying to do to combat that long-term structural challenge, you know, sitting as the CFO that that's yours to take on.

Certainly.

Um I know that we are pretty strategic when it comes to taking out debt service that helps to study and funding operations as well as use of our general fund, um, you know, our savings.

Uh these things can be used strategically to help us bridge any gaps in cash flow um until we know receive state aid, bring in our levy, or any other uh revenue streams.

So I think just finance continuing to work closely with the budget team and with all departments and watching their spending.