Greenfield Board Discusses Audit, Festival

david@dresdenenterprise.com

GREENFIELD (January 11) — The main focus of last Tuesday night’s Greenfield City Board meeting concerned an audit report of the city’s financial records for fiscal year 2020-2021. Aldermen also discussed the details of this year’s Fiddlestick Festival.

Audit Report

The City of Greenfield received a good audit report for the past fiscal year, which included having increased revenues and low debt.

According to Chloe Humphrey, Senior Manager at Cowart Reese Sargent CPAs, the city’s revenues increased from $80,000 in FY 2019-2020 to $129,000 in FY 2020-2021.

“We’re managing our allocations a little bit better than we did last year in the General Fund,” Humphrey said. “The way the General Fund currently processes its expenses, is funds are paid out of the General Fund, and then, the other funds reimburse it.

“There are no findings this year. Last year, we had the Drug Fund over budgeted, but it was corrected this year, so we’re under budget and everything’s in line.

“The beginning and ending numbers indicate the city paid its debt down. As of June 30, 2021, the city owed $67,000 in total debt, and that is scheduled to be paid out over the next year, so the city will be debt-free at the end of this fiscal year,” Humphrey said.

Alderman James Roy Pope asked, “How can the city be debt-free, since it just bought a new police car?”

According to Humphrey, the police vehicle was procured with a lease-purchase agreement and, therefore, is not considered to be an outstanding debt.

Humphrey mentioned there was a compliance finding concerning having city funds being held in a bank without adequate collateral to cover the amount deposited above the FDIC’s insurance limit of $250,000.

She explained, “All of your deposits now are in the Greenfield Bank, which is not a member of the Tennessee Bank Collateral Pool. That’s just fine, but they have to pledge a certain amount of security to cover 105 percent of your balances. They must place their securities against the balance, so if anything were to go wrong, (such as bank failure) there would be enough money in securities to cover your balances over the FDIC limit.” The standard deposit insurance coverage limit is $250,000 per depositor, per FDIC-insured bank, per ownership category. “Sometimes you have a lot more money in the bank than you do from one day to the next. We’re looking at the bank balance for June 30, 2021.”

Humphrey suggested the city obtain a monthly, or at least a quarterly, statement from the bank, listing its securities, since the city is carrying over a lot of cash, including its CDs or investments.

Fiddlesticks Festival

Alderman James Roy Pope, owner of Pope’s Concessions, which provides carnival rides, food concessions and games for carnivals, fairs and picnics across Tennessee and several states, addressed the board concerning Greenfield’s upcoming Fiddlesticks Festival.

The local festival offers free rides, games and live entertainment and to visitors. It also has a Fiddlesticks ice-cream eating contest for kids.

The annual event is sponsored by Pope and several local businesses, as well as Greenfield City Hall.

Pope requested the board’s permission to hold the festival Wednesday, April 13 through Sunday, April 16, which is the week before Easter.

“We would probably have to start setting up Sunday, April 10,” Pope said. “When there’s no traffic, it’s easier to get stuff parked. It will shut down Saturday night, but Sunday is needed to clean up and get everything moved to make the roads passable, if not by Sunday at least by Monday.

“We had a bigger crowd last year than probably we’ve ever had, and we had more sponsorships than we’ve ever had.

“We had no issues or accidents that I know,” Pope said. “I tried to use as many local bands and entities that I could, and there was a lot of good response from that.”

City Attorney Beau Pemberton stated if the board wishes to do so, it could go ahead and approve the dates in question, and the areas to be used for the Fiddlestick Festival on Front Street.

The board unanimously approved the dates requested by Alderman Pope for setting up and hosting this year’s Fiddlestick Festival. However, they agreed that the location of the festival will not be determined until the February meeting, when comments will be heard from the businesses along Front Street.

Alderman Pope also requested the city increase its sponsorship for the festival from the $1,000 already budgeted to $2,000.

Pope stated the funds would help cover the insurance for the event. He noted $1,000 is just enough to cover the cost of the Port-A-Johns. “We cannot operate without bathrooms, and honestly we need more Port-A-Johns than we get. I called three different companies to try to get the cheapest price that I could. The extra funds will also allow us have the Port-A-John’s cleaned every day rather than every other day.”

“The bands cost approximately $500 each, and I also pay a sound man to come. That’s the reason I can get the bands for $500, because we have someone to do the setup. We can also use the sound system for contests, or any other social event. It’s a good safety option to have.

“I don’t want to have to make the festival smaller,” Pope said. “I’d like to make it bigger and better if I can. The more free things we can offer for the kids, the better it is.” We had a lot of people to come for the festival last year.” He stated some of those in attendance were from Gibson, Madison and Dyer counties.

Pope compared the $2,000 he is requesting to the City of Dresden, which spends $10,000 to $11,000 to host the Iris Festival. Additionally, he noted the City of Martin recently spent $11,000 on the Christmas celebration it held in the downtown park. “They only had four rides, while the Fiddlestick Festival will have almost a dozen free rides,” Pope said.

The board agreed to address how much money the city will contribute for the Fiddlestick Festival at the next board meeting. This will give them time to look at the budget before making a decision on the amount to donate.

Monthly Sales Tax Revenues

Mayor Cindy McAdams reported local sales tax collections during the December totaled $29,389.38, and state sales tax amounted to $18,357.27. During November, local sales tax collections were $27,939.51, and state sales taxes collected totaled $18,261.60. This represents an increase of $1,449.89 in local sales tax revenue and $95.67 more in state sales collections. This amounts to an overall increase in sales taxes of $1,545.56.

With no more business to discuss, the meeting adjourned.