The Cincinnati Recreation Commission is working through a budget gap after its spending ran more than $1 million over projections between February and June this year.
CRC leadership explained the cost overruns at Monday's Cincinnati City Council Budget and Finance Committee meeting. The committee was considering mid-year budget adjustments for city departments.
This year, other departments like the Cincinnati Health Department and the city's law department, also asked for significant budget adjustments.
Officials say most of the CRC overages were spent on personnel hours and came as a result of unforeseen expenses — things like higher utilities and keeping recreation centers open extended hours to serve as cooling or warming stations, for example.
But CRC Director Daniel Betts said the commission needs to be more vigilant about how it is spending. He apologized to Council members for the overrun.
"This overspend is basically the result of us not monitoring our centers and our pools and what they were spending and allowing them to overspend," he said. "And that just cannot happen. I've committed and said on this dais that it will not happen again on my watch."
Betts and other CRC leaders told Council they'll be able to enact cost-cutting measures and suspend some hiring to save about $400,000 to make up for some of the overrun. They don't expect it to lead to layoffs or service interruptions.
Betts and other CRC officials were before the committee to ask approval of transfers moving more than $1.5 million from other CRC funds to regional and administrative accounts that experienced the overruns.
Budget and Finance Chair Jeff Cramerding and other committee members opted to hold on that request temporarily to allow a full analysis of how the overrun happened and whether it will cause impacts to CRC services.
"There are some questions about the remedy and how it will affect the public," Cramerding said. "These are all big numbers."
Council member Mark Jeffreys said he hoped to see a report that would suggest ways to keep a similar situation from happening in the future.
"It's more an assessment of, something broke down in this system, like, the checks and balances," he said. "Are we going to have quarterly check-ins, monthly check-ins on budget? There could be multiple solutions."
Vice Mayor Jan-Michele Lemon Kearney and Council member Victoria Parks voted against holding off on the funding request.
"We're going to hold it, you're going to look for what you want to look for," Parks said. "It is clear that they spent money doing what we asked them to do."
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