ith the loss of Bowling Green’s chief financial officer to scandal and city manager to resignation, city commissioners face the task of building a new budget without their key players.
The city budget for next year is due June 30, and working on the budget without the two individuals mainly responsible for its maintenance will be harder than previous years, City Commissioner Brian Strow said.
“It makes it more difficult to come up with that budget,” he said.
Former CFO Davis Cooper was arrested March 20 and charged with embezzling city funds.
City Manager Chuck Coates will resign April 30 after being asked to leave by city commissioners because of lapses in his management of city affairs.
City commissioners will be looking more closely at revenue before it reaches City Hall, Mayor Elaine Walker said. Money coming into City Hall will be handled by more than one person in the future, she said.
City Treasurer Jeff Meisel discovered the misuse of city funds, Walker said. He’ll also be working on the budget in place of Cooper, she said.
Meisel and Shawna Dowell, the assistant to the city manager, are supposed to take over for the CFO and the city manager in case of emergency, and they’ll have the experience to do the jobs of their predecessors, City Commissioner Brian “Slim” Nash said.
Cooper and Coates will still have an impact on the budget, he said.
The work they accomplished on the budget so far will go on without them, Nash said.
The process will be especially difficult this year because of the new zero-based budget plan introduced by Strow.
The budget requires full disclosure of all spending by every department in city government, which could be more time consuming.
The commissioners have already discussed hiring more personnel to work on the budget, Strow said.
He said the new personnel would only be able to gather data from the various departments – not help implement policies.
Reach Bobby Harrell at news@wkuherald.com.
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