Girard council votes to reallocate revenue from speed camera program

By Sarah Lehr

slehr@vindy.com

GIRARD

City council voted 6-1 Monday to readjust the distribution of revenue from its new speed camera program so that a dedicated portion of proceeds will benefit streets and construction – at the expense of the general fund.

When council voted to authorize the program on April 11, an ordinance stipulated that 70 percent of revenue would go to the general fund and 30 percent would go to capital improvements for the police department.

An amendment approved by council Monday instead distributes only 30 percent of revenue to the general fund.

The police department fund will receive 30 percent, and the streets and construction fund will receive 40 percent of fine revenue.

Fourth Ward Councilman Thomas Grumley voted against the amendment.

Council’s vote disregarded the advice of Auditor Sam Zirafi, who suggested that 70 percent of revenue should go to the general fund.

The city ended the month of August with a negative $314,511 unexpended balance in the general fund. It also recorded a $355,613 water fund deficit and a positive $1,211,155 balance aggregated from all funds.

“The bad news is the general fund is very, very fluid,” Zirafi said.

“The reason I say that is spending seems to be slowing down, but I don’t know how much revenue we’re going to get.”

Though other funds must be spent for specific purposes, the general fund may be used to subsidize other funds.

“With a city our size, the most important fund is the general fund.” Zirafi said.

Grumley expressed concern about finding funding for street improvement projects

“This is the cash cow that came because of these guys and I’d hate to see all of that money get sucked up into the general fund,” Grumley said, referring to the fact that he was the sole member of council to vote against adopting the speed camera program.

Councilman-at-large Steve Brooks said residents wanted revenue from the camera fines to go to “specific purposes.”

“I wasn’t going to vote for this legislation because it was a money grab,” Brooks said, adding that he supported the camera program because of concerns about speeding and car crashes.