Was Brownwood nearly bankrupt six months ago ?

Saturday December 9, 2006
News
City looking for ways to trim current budget
By Steve Nash — Brownwood Bulletin

Brownwood City Council members want to know if the city’s $27.4 million budget can shrink.
Finance Director Walter Middleton said he will begin working next week on some “budget scrubbing” at the request of Interim City Manager Pat Chesser.
Any cuts won’t affect employee salaries or benefits, Middleton said. He said no specific amounts by which to reduce the budget have been mentioned.
Mayor Pro-Tem Dave Fair said council members discussed with Chesser the idea of finding budget cuts when they appointed him interim city manager on Nov. 28.
Fair said the city administration typically brings requests to the council for budget amendments. “Frequently those are to spend additional revenue, not reduce it,” Fair said. “The council has instructed the city manager to begin the process of looking at the budget and determine if there are places to save money.
“This was certainly one of the first jobs that we handed to (Chesser),” Fair said. “I don’t think that there’s a target. ... I personally believe that there are things that can be cut.”
Middleton said he believes the city administration can find areas to cut. He said he and Chesser will go over proposed cuts with department heads and present a proposal to the council, probably in mid-January.
Middleton said any reductions the council approves will be “deobligated” but will stay in the budget until budget amendments are approved late in the fiscal year. “We just won’t spend it,” Middleton said.
Middleton said in a Dec. 6 e-mail to Chesser that the city has 21 days of operating funds if only “unrestricted funds,” or the money in the city’s operating fund, are considered.
The city would have an additional 15 days in operating funds if the council placed money that is currently in two funds with other designations into the operating fund, Middleton said.
The city is also owed reimbursements from the Texas Water Development Board for water improvement projects, and those reimbursements would add another 17 days in operating funds, Middleton said. “The total of all of that is 53 days,” Middleton said in the email.
“We certainly don’t have as much cash in reserve as we had five years ago, but we’re in pretty good shape,” Chesser said. “Financially we’re fine. We always can do better and that’s what this council wants to do.
“We’re not bankrupt. We’re nowhere near bankrupt. We’re in better condition than we were six months ago.”

source: http://www.brownwoodbulletin.com/articles/2006/12/09/news/news03.txt