City Commission completes budget hearings

By Beverly Bryant/News Director

Ponca City’s Board of Commissioners has completed two days of budget hearings, meeting with representatives of every city department this week.

They’ve heard the highlights on last year’s achievements, goals for the upcoming fiscal year and budget requests and needs.

The 2015-16 budgeted expenditures top $100 million this year, including $23,098,127 in General Fund expenditures. The General Fund is for those services which are provided without fees to the public, such as police and fire services.

The City of Ponca City has 392 employees, a number which has held steady for the past 10 years with minor fluctuations. With 68 employees, the Ponca City Police Department is the largest department.

In the City Manager’s proposed budget, capital requests for all departments totals $7,325,064. Departments originally requested $10,521,425 in capital items before the budget was drafted. Some adjustments may be made before the final budget is approved.

The department with the largest capital request is Ponca City Energy, which requested $2,057,000. The City Manager’s proposal trimmed that to $2,037,000. Ponca City Energy’s requests included funds for electrical distribution system improvements, a distribution reinforcement program, SCADA master server software, a large bucket truck, a bucket van, a storage building for equipment and material, street lights and fiber optic capital. The storage building was cut in the proposed budget.

Additional information will be reported through the week on PoncaCityNow.com and our Facebook pages.