Kingfisher city commissioners voted at a special meeting last Tuesday to approve a $17.3 million budget for the new fiscal year which begins July 1, noting a desire to prioritize sewer, water, drainage and street projects.

A new contract for City Manager Dave Slezickey approved at another special meeting Monday night contains incentive provisions that appear to promote the same goals.

Commissioner Geoff Covalt had asked to table the budget vote at the regular monthly meeting the week prior to allow more time for commissioners to dig into budget details.

Covalt made the motion during Tuesday’s brief meeting to approve the budget as presented, seconded by Commissioner Ryan Deatherage.

Both commissioners said that they had been involved in discussions with City Manager Dave Slezickey since the previous meeting about establishing a designated capital improvement fund.

“We have had a number of discussions in regards to that and I think we have a pretty good plan as far as building capital improvement and I would make the motion to approve,” Covalt said.

“Have any changes been made to the budget?” Commissioner Kyle Mecklenburg, who was not present at the previous meeting, asked.

“It’s still the same. We just digested it in every way you can skin a cat,” City Manager Dave Slezickey said. “It has not been changed from what was published in the paper.”

“My understanding is that as we go through the coming months, we will see budget amendments to justify having more capital outlay as far as capital improvements,” Deatherage said. “What we see today may not be what we actually see in August.”

“The fund balance is there, we want to establish a formal capital improvement fund and figure out how to source that through existing revenue,” Slezickey said.

“As we move forward we’ll have a little more accountability as to how things are moving throughout the year to ensure the money is available to invest in capital assets,” Covalt said. “It’s going to take more involvement by us and discussing priorities quickly in the next couple of months.”

“So we can approve the budget as it is now and make amendments later?” Mecklenburg asked.

“We can amend the budget at any time to make adjustments,” Slezickey said.

Covalt, Deatherage, Mecklenburg and Mayor Roxie Alexander voted unanimously to approve the budget. Vice Mayor Wendell Prim was not present.

After the meeting adjourned, the city manager and commissioners spent a few minutes with the Times & Free Press to elaborate on matters Deather age and Covalt had discussed in question-and-answer sessions with Slezickey since the previous meeting.

“We discussed trying to formalize a capital improvement project fund and whether we do that by resolution to increase capital improvement funding based on existing revenue,” Slezickey said. “We’ve focused significantly on quality of life enhancements the past few years, so our focus now is on capital improvements and public safety.”

“We’re talking about sewer, water, drainage and streets,” Deatherage said, when asked to identify capital improvement priorities. “We want to see if there are other things we can cut in the budget to set aside funds for that.”

“We’re sitting at a higher than average fund balance and we also have ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funds still coming,” Slezickey said. “We’ll be looking at capturing some of those revenues that aren’t projected directly in the budget (to fund capital improvements).”

“Our interest in our discussions was how do we do that not only with one-time monies (like ARPA funds) but also make sure that we budget going forward so we take care of our assets – street, sewer, water and drainage – and not operate only off one-time money,” Covalt said.

According to a budget summary published in a previous edition of the Times & Free Press, the city is expected to start the new fiscal year on July 1 with a fund balance of just over $10 million, compared to $7.88 million last year.

Of that amount, just under $6.4 million are unrestricted operating funds (General Fund – $2.42 million; Public Works Authority – $2 million; Recreation Authority – $62,508; Special Projects Authority – $32,338).

Another almost $2 million is divided among restricted funds and $1.7 million is held in reserve for capital expenditures.

The budget approved by commissioners projects revenues of just over $17.7 million.

After an executive session of slightly over an hour and 20 minutes Monday night, commissioners approved a contract with City Manager Dave Slezickey that includes a new incentive provision.

On top of a starting salary of $133,250, the contract includes incentives to complete “important endeavors that City and Slezickey agre are important to the continued growth and prosperity of the City of Kingfisher.”

The contract provides that three such endeavors will be identified each year and assigned a value of between $3,000 and $5,000, which Slezickey will receive as an incentive when the projects are completed within the fiscal year.

This year’s projects are to be identified by July 31, according to the contract.

The incentive provision was added at the request of commissioners and is intended to mirror the incentive plans given to chief executives in private industry to encourage the accomplishment of agreed upon goals.