News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
After several months of crunching numbers and analyzing budgets, the Sisters City Council on Thursday acted to reorganize how it handles the city's reserve funds.
"We've had a reserve ... and it's just been sitting in the reserve fund and wasn't earmarked for anything," Mayor Brad Boyd explained.
The council's actions transferred those funds into the general fund and "created specific reserves in each fund" such as water, sewer, streets, etc.
City staff identified assets that will need to be repaired or replaced and determined how much should be held in reserve to cover such costs in each individual fund.
About $500,000 that has been squirreled away for more than a decade in the event that the city might try to reconstitute its own police force has been reallocated. The city of Sisters contracts for police services with the Deschutes County Sheriff's Office.
Boyd noted that the move is a reorganization and a rationalization.
"The money didn't go anywhere; it's still in the budget; it's still available to the city," he said.
However, the reorganization of reserves does allow the city to use reserve funds as "a management tool," Boyd said. Approximately $1 million could be considered a strategic reserve, which might be used for projects to enhance economic vitality in Sisters. Boyd emphasized that the council still needs to come up with operating principles, criteria and guidelines for how a strategic reserve would be used.
"I'm not advocating that we go out and spend that money," he said. However, it is "available if there are opportunities to leverage that to help the city, the citizens of Sisters for economic development - that money is available."
In other business, the council agreed on a 5-0 vote to create an airport district, a vital step in the annexation process to bring Sisters Eagle Airport into the city. Voters approved annexation last spring.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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