A six-member budget oversight committee will monitor the City of Vicksburg’s fiscal 2015 $32.44 million general fund budget, which goes into effect Oct. 1.

Mayor George Flaggs Jr. named City Clerk Walter Osborne, Accounting Director Doug Whittington, City Attorney Nancy Thomas, IT Director Billy Gordon, and accounting department employees Sidra Burns and Anna Booth to the committee. Osborne and Whittington will be co-chairmen.

“Until we can get our arms around some structure as it relates to some fiscal responsibility, I think it’s imperative that we appoint this committee,” Flaggs said before naming the group. He said the committee would meet monthly to examine the city’s spending and report its findings to the Board of Mayor and Aldermen.

The committee’s purpose, he said, “is to provide more accountability, fiscal integrity and responsibility for the day-to-day accounting of the finances of the City of Vicksburg.”

It will be responsible for monitoring the city’s cash balance, expenses, its outstanding long-term debt and review the monthly claims docket for the city “to ensure the funds are disbursed more expeditiously.”

The board approved the budget Thursday. About $3.2 million of the budget’s projected revenue is one-time money for capital projects: $1.9 million in Federal Railroad Administration reimbursement funds from the Washington Street bridge project to be used for several major projects, and a $1.3 million low-interest Mississippi Development Authority loan for the Wisconsin connection road to link North Frontage Road and Wisconsin Avenue.

When the one-time money is deducted from the budget, it leaves the city with about $29.16 million in operating revenue.

“We need a safety net for the budget and to make certain those expenditures are proper and monitored, so that when we get to April 1 to kick in that supplemental budget, we’ll be able to pull the trigger on that,” he said.

When the board approved the budget, it delayed $205,495 in capital spending until April 1, the start of the second half of the fiscal year, to ensure the city’s revenues have met projections for the first half of the year.

“We can’t spend our $205,000 until we know we’ve reached our 50 percent plus budget revenue projections,” Flaggs said.

“The reporting process, I think that’s important. Just trying to keep tabs on what’s going on,” South Ward Alderman Willis Thompson said. “I think having a report is an important step in this.”

Flaggs said after the meeting the goal of the committee is to create “more in-house accountability, so as we go forward with the budget, the public will know what we know.”

“I’m a firm believer in financial responsibility, and everybody ought to know. It’s not our dollars, its the taxpayers’ dollar,” he said.

“We need to hold the department heads more accountable to the board as to how we spend. You can’t just budget and have no control. This will help until we can get a performance-based budget implemented.”