Budget approved, Jordan recognized

By John Miller, 01/19/22 4:03 PM

PRESCOTT – There wasn’t a lot of business for the Prescott City Council to deal with during its January meeting Monday night. However, what there was, was dealt with promptly.

Ann Jordan was recognized as being the city’s employee of the year for 2021. This was first announced at the city’s Christmas party in December.

The council also approved a budget for 2022, along with the audit for 2020. City Accountant Carl Dalrymple said there was a lot in the audit, but only two main points for the council to look at – whether or not it was a clean audit and the management letter. The city received a clean audit, he said, telling the panel there’s a lot in the audit the council doesn’t need, but is required.

Questions were raised about the audit being done outside of Prescott. Dalrymple told the council in no uncertain terms he would not audit the city’s books. He reminded the panel they’d asked about having the state legislature do the audit, but the legislative audit committee won’t audit the utility part, and would only deal with those portions involving taxes being paid to the city. He pointed out the Arkadelphia firm of Taylor, Rogers, Manning and Plyler have been auditing the city’s books since 1977 and knows where everything is. “I don’t recommend changing auditors.”

Jamie Hillery, executive director of the Prescott-Nevada County Chamber of Commerce, said the Chamber isn’t doing things like it did in the past because of Covid, but the Chamber is still trying to be creative. She reminded the council January and February are slow for the Chamber anyway. Hillery briefly told the council plans are in the works for a Sesquicentennial event for Nevada County, with a committee being formed to put things together.

In other business, the council approved leaving Lakeshis Stucky on the Parks Commission with another five-year term, and left the meeting time and date the same.

Jordan introduced new members of the Prescott Police Department, including the new detective, Joey Grayson, who began his law enforcement career with the PPD in 1995 under former Chief Willie Latin.

Councilman Howard Austin, in discussing the financial report, saying he noticed some departments were in the red and was wondering if anything could be done to prevent this from happening.

Dalrymple said there isn’t because several departments don’t generate enough income to cover their expenses. These departments are covered by the electric department, which, basically, subsidizes the city.

Austin asked if the department heads could keep up with spending on a monthly basis, and was told three of them do, especially since the exorbitant electric bill the city got last February.

Dalrymple said plans are for the budget committee to meet on a quarterly basis and go over each department’s finances.