Monterey searching its budget to find money for matching costs for two ARP grants.
Monterey Finance Committee Chairman Jamie Phillips said the town had some issues putting together a tight budget this past budget season. Phillips said he was caught by surprise when he recently discovered matching funds that will need to be provided for two grants.
“We were looking at those costs, we were looking at just overall spending to just be mindful of you know, make sure we are not spending any unnecessary funds just cause it’s at least, a new and unexpected cost that we found that we just got to remedy that portion of it,” Phillips said.
Phillips said he recently expressed his concerns about the town’s general spending practices in a recent finance committee meeting. Phillips said he is hopeful the town can also look at establishing a refined spending process.
“All of us as elected officials, we’re elected to be good stewards, do the best thing for the city,” Phillips said. “My philosophy is also to be open and honest as I can be with the citizens. It’s not always the popular thing, but gonna be honest with you and be open, and hey, this is where we are, this is what we gotta do, you know, we just want to let them know the process we are going through and keep them informed.”
Phillips said he hopes a better process will prevent the town from having to put together tight budgets in the future. Phillips said the town’s aldermen and finance committee will have to do whatever it takes to find the funds for the grants.
“One of the points I made during this meeting was, hey, we know we are gonna have to find these funds within the current budget, or we will need to come up with revenue, whatever that means,” Phillips said. “You know, to pay for these things, because we have already committed to the grants and that’s definitely not something we want back out on at this point.”
Phillips said it will take some time for the town to figure out if there is enough money in the budget to cover the grant-matching costs. Phillips said it may not be as big of problem this year as the large portion of the grant matches will not be required till next fiscal year.