(a) No contract, agreement, or other contractual obligation, involving the expenditure of money shall be entered into or authorized by any officer or employee of the City unless the City Clerk-Treasurer or his duly authorized representative shall first certify that the money required for such contract, agreement, obligation, or expenditure, is in the Treasury or in the process of collection thereto, to the credit of the fund from which it is to be drawn, free from previous encumbrances, and appropriated for the purpose of the proposed contract or expenditure, which certificate shall be filed and immediately recorded in the accounting records of the City, and a copy thereof shall be furnished to the contractor or person to whom such money will be payable. The sum so certified shall thereafter be considered encumbered until the City is discharged from the contract, agreement or obligation.
(b) All contracts, agreements, or other contractual obligations and orders entered into contrary to the provisions of Division (a) of this section, shall be void, and no person whatever shall have any claim or demand against the City thereunder, except that such claim may be paid in the manner and under the conditions provided by the general laws of Ohio pertaining to certification by fiscal officers of cities, and such claims may be paid upon the authorization of an ordinance or resolution passed by the Council, as a moral obligation.