(A) Pursuant to the City Proprietary Function Act, the City Council may prepare a proprietary budget statement for its proprietary functions separate and apart from its city budget statement prepared pursuant to the State Budget Act. For purposes of this section, PROPRIETARY FUNCTION shall mean a water supply or distribution utility, a wastewater collection or treatment utility, an electric generation, transmission or distribution utility, a gas supply, transmission or distribution utility, an integrated solid waste management collection, disposal or handling utility or a hospital or a nursing home owned by the city.
(B) The City Council may establish a separate fiscal year for each proprietary function, except that any proprietary-function which is subsidized by appropriations from the city’s General Fund shall have the same fiscal year as the city. For purposes of this section, SUBSIDIZATION shall mean that the costs of operation of a proprietary function are regularly financed by appropriations from the city’s general fund in excess of the amount paid by the city to the proprietary function for actual service or services received.
(C) If the city does not include its proprietary functions in its city budget statement, a proposed proprietary statement shall be prepared in writing on forms provided by the State Auditor and filed with the City Clerk, at least 30 days prior to the start of the fiscal year of each proprietary function, containing the following information:
(1) For the immediate two prior fiscal years, the revenue from all sources, the unencumbered cash balance at the beginning and end of the year, the amount received by taxation and the amount of actual expenditure;
(2) For the current fiscal year, actual and estimated revenue from all sources separately stated as to each source, the actual unencumbered cash balance available at the beginning of the year, the amount received from taxation and the amount of actual and estimated expenditure, whichever is applicable;
(3) For the immediately ensuing fiscal year, an estimate of revenue from all sources separately stated to each source, the actual or estimated unencumbered cash balance, whichever is applicable, to be available at the beginning of the year, the amounts proposed to be expended during the fiscal year and the amount of cash reserve based on actual experience of prior years; and
(4) A uniform summary of the proposed budget statement which shall include a total of all funds maintained for the proprietary function. The statement shall contain the estimated cash reserve for each fiscal year and shall whether or not the reserve is encumbered. The cash reserve projections shall be based upon the actual experience of prior years.
(D) (1) After the proposed proprietary budget statement is filed with the City Clerk, the City Council shall conduct a public hearing on the statement. Notice of the time and place of the hearing, a summary of the proposed proprietary budget statement and notice that the full proposed proprietary budget statement is available for public review with the City Clerk during normal business hours, shall be published at least five days prior to the hearing in a newspaper of general circulation within the City Council’s jurisdiction or by mailing each resident within the City Council’s jurisdiction.
(2) After the hearing, the proposed proprietary budget statement shall be adopted or amended and adopted as amended and a written record shall be kept of the hearing. If the adopted proprietary budget statement reflects a change from the proposed proprietary statement presented at the hearing, a copy of the adopted proprietary budget statement shall be filed with the City Clerk within 20 days after its adoption and published in a newspaper of general circulation within the City Council’s jurisdiction or by mailing to each resident within the City Council’s jurisdiction.
(E) If the actual expenditures for a proprietary function exceed the estimated expenditures in the proprietary budget statement during its fiscal year, the City Council shall adopt a proprietary function reconciliation statement within 90 days after the end of the fiscal year which reflects any difference between the adopted proprietary budget statement for the previous fiscal year and the actual expenditures and revenue for the fiscal year. After the adoption of a proprietary function reconciliation statement, it shall be filed with the City Clerk and published in a newspaper of general circulation within the City Council’s jurisdiction or by mailing to each resident within the City Council’s jurisdiction. If the difference between the adopted proprietary budget for previous fiscal year and the actual expenditures and revenues for the fiscal year is greater than 10%, the proprietary function reconciliation statement shall only be adopted following a public hearing.
(F) Any income from a proprietary function which is transferred to the General Fund of the city shall be shown as a source of revenue in the city budget statement created pursuant to the State Budget Act.
(Prior Code, § 1-820) (Ord. 11-94, passed 12-19-1994)
Statutory reference:
Related provisions, see Neb. RS 18-2803 to 18-2808