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By TYLER RALEY | Staff Writer

HELENA – Sitting around the table in a fully packed Helena City Hall, the Helena City Council went into deep discussion on the potential of an ordinance that would transfer signatory duties to a council designee.

The meeting occurred during a regularly scheduled work session at 5 p.m. on Monday, April 28 that preceded the council meeting at 6 p.m.

On Saturday, April 26, an article surfaced online discussing the city’s financial future as a result of the Helena Forward project, an initiative that is helping to develop a new $45 million city hall and sports complex.

During a regularly scheduled work session on Monday, April 14, the City Council had Dent Moses, a financial auditor for the city, come in to discuss Helena’s general fund audit for fiscal year 2024. In the budgetary comparison schedule for the general fund, the audit shows that the city budgeted $11,118,676 in general fund expenditures, but actually spent $22,291,383 for the fiscal year.

As a result, the audit shows the city as having an $11,172,707 deficit, leaving concerns to many around the city as to why the debt is happening and questioning the city’s financial spending.

With the continued questions surrounding financial spending, the city council added to the agenda discussion about signatory duties to add a councilmember as a check signee alongside or separate from Mayor Brian Puckett.

The circulation of the financial stress has also weighed heavily on city employees

Helena Fire Chief Chris Miller addressed the council during the work session, expressing his worry for the city and his department following threats he and the rest of his department have received over the city’s alleged mishandling of funds.

“This is more than just a fire department update, this is an employee of Helena update,” Miller said. “We as employees, this is all starting to wear on us. The fire department has been in a great place for the past year and a half. I’ve worked for this city, myself and others, when we didn’t have to. We could’ve went other places, but we’ve stayed here because this is a great city, it’s a great community.”

As long-time employee for the city, Miller reflected on the fire department’s service to Helena and the previous financial struggles the city has gone through, stating how much the firemen have had to endure over time.

“We’ve served three mayors, five sets, sometimes six sets of City Councils,” Miller said. “That being said, we served all of them the same, whether we agree or disagree with things. Under (Sonny) Penhale, this city actually was broke. This city went through very big financial problems. We laid off all the part-timers in the fire department. Station No. 2 was shut down for a long time. We had four firemen running from end to end. There was no back and forth on Facebook then.”

Miller mentioned that since that time, the fire department has done well to recover, but believes these alleged financial disruptions have caused the city to start traveling a path that could be dangerous.

“Ever since then, we’ve only done better to recover,” Miller said. “I think that that needs to be said. A lot of us know what it’s like to work for a city that’s actually financially broke. We’re not financially broke as a city, we’re broken. People have some values that they have forgotten.”

With the hope of a careful consideration of the potential ordinance at hand, Miller expressed his feelings on how he wants the city to make a decision that brings the city closer together, and not farther apart, as the threats are becoming a burden.

“As employees that have willingly served this city for two decades… I ask that people consider that, not just here at this table, but everywhere,” Miller said. “That this is starting to weigh on our employees. This is going to hurt recruitment and retention.” 

Following his address, Brad Green, a financial advisor with Raymond James who helped during the bond issuance, came to speak to the council to clear up any questions they might have following the surfacing of the allegations and worry.

To help the Helena Forward project roll along smoothly, the city approved an ordinance to issue warrant bonds as a method of funding and paying off the reserves that the city used for the project. 

“During that (bond) process, there was a whole slew of professionals involved—bond lawyers, accountants, writers, financial advisors, the rating agencies,” Green said. “During that process, the rating agencies reviewed the city from a financial perspective, so they looked at five years of historical audits and what was being financed and the growth that I suspect some of these problems or challenges are because of the growth and things are changing.”

With the city’s financial history being the topic at hand, Green took a dive into why this issue was important, as it has to do not only with the city’s financial status, but with companies and investors as well.

“The city has a very strong credit rating,” Green said. “I reviewed the 2024 audited financial statements recently, and I guess since the chief mentioned it, that $11 million story has gotten attention… Investors that purchase the city’s bonds are (from) all walks of life. They could be mom and pops and they have it in their retirement accounts that they’ve saved for their whole careers. When they see that headline, they call us.”

After seeing the reports of the mishandling, Green felt that there was a misunderstanding by some that the city was in deep financial trouble, but was ready to answer any questions that the council had.

“It did catch us off guard,” Green said. “I’m not the city’s auditor, so that’s important, but I looked at financials all day and I think that was a little bit misleading. We sit on the same side of the table as the city, so we do share responsibility to the city, so I’m here to be a resource.”

Curious on comparison, City Councilman Chris Willis inquired on how the current audit looks side-by-side with other bond deals. Green clarified that while it is tough to compare it, any deficit showing in the 2024 financials is a result of large capital projects the city is carrying out, resulting in the expenses being over the revenues.

With the bonds being a major factor in this questioning, however, Green fully explained that as a result of the city’s actions and other tax laws, the city’s finances are not as big a worry as some might believe.

“Just as a reminder, under federal tax laws when you borrow tax-exempt money, you have to abide by U.S. Treasury regulations,” Green said. “You can’t do things that will make the bonds taxable. One of those things that the city undertook was to pass what’s called a reimbursement resolution. Under the Federal Tax Code, you can spend your own money if a project is going to be financed with tax-exempt bond proceeds within a certain amount of time. When that was planned or thought about, it covered the city, so you didn’t have to reimburse yourself with bond proceeds, but it gave you the flexibility to do so.

“I think when there were certain things that happened that delayed the transaction, the city was spending its funds, so when the bond issue closed, you reimbursed your general fund reserves with the bond money, and that happens almost all the time. You have to have professionals to do the work before you have the funds to do the project.”

After Green’s report, the council went into discussion on the thoughts each member had about the potential ordinance related to signatory duties, with Laura Joseph proposing the idea and why it was brought to the agenda.

“All of the city’s checks have two signatures on them, the city clerk and the mayor,” Joseph said. “That could be just changing one of those to be a City Council designee. It couldn’t be the mayor and it couldn’t be the city clerk, but we would still have to have two signatures, and one of those would be someone who is required to maintain and look over the city’s finances that’s directly responsible for that. It could be a member of the council, I think it probably should be, but I have been hearing a lot of requests for the city to take a more direct control into the city’s finances, be much more hands-on and really get in there, and I feel like this is a way that we can do that.”

City Council President Alice Lobell saw a potential issue arising with the idea, questioning the constant availability of a member of the council to carry out signatory duties as many of the members have other full-time jobs.

“One of the things that I see is, from my understanding, checks are signed almost every day,” Lobell said. “I think that you add a council person trying to be here, it would just need to be one every day, I think that that would be very difficult to have a council person here every day because they are not on the payroll to be working here every day. Yes, we have a job to do, but a lot of times our job is away from this building. I could see where that could be a problem.” 

City Councilman Andy Healy, who was appointed in January, responded to Lobell’s concerns, tying in his own personal experience at his work to the situation.

“Major corporations, the ones that I’ve worked with in the past, we have bills due on Monday and checks are cut on Wednesday and we sign checks,” Healy said. “I understand they are one-offs, but I don’t see why we couldn’t have Wednesday or Tuesday or Thursday as check signing days, and then we could make it our point, whoever that designee is to come up here and sign the checks.”

Healy then went on to discuss his reasoning behind his support of the need for change, citing concerns with the level of trust that residents currently have for the city. He believes the addition of more checks and balances with a potential back-up designee will help that, should the delegated member not be available to sign.

“We could put those protections in place to where we don’t strip signatures, we just add the signatures and checks and balances to this,” Healy said. “I really think we really need to, with the current image right now and everything that we’ve got going on in this city, we’ve got to put something in place to build (the citizen’s) trust back up regardless.”

Council members Hewy Woodman and Willis each commented on the potential of the ordinance as well, no matter if it is taking away the mayor’s signing privileges or just adding a council designee, that this can be solved as long as the members put their heads together.

However, Mayor Brian Puckett brought up the point of a governmental resolution already being in place, saying how the idea is not new to the City Council, just a change and a potential new resolution to what is already in place.

“There’s a resolution that y’all pass every four years that designates who’s on the accounts and who signs checks,” Puckett said. “This is something y’all already do, that would just be doing a new resolution.”

While no decisions have been made, the council agreed that it would like to keep discussion of this potential ordinance open, saying something needs to happen, but more talk needs to ensue.