The Town shall operate on an annual budget. The fiscal year
of the Town shall begin on the first day of May and end on the last
day of April in the next succeeding calendar year. Such fiscal year
shall constitute the budget year and the accounting year.
The Town Manager and the Chief Financial Officer shall submit
an operating budget to the Town Council not later than the fifteenth
(15th) day of March each year. The budget shall provide a complete
financial plan for the budget year and shall contain estimates of
anticipated revenues and proposed expenditures for the coming year.
The total of the anticipated revenues shall equal or exceed that total
of the proposed expenditures. The budget and all other financial records
of the Town shall be open to inspection by anyone during normal business
hours.
Before adopting the fiscal year budget and Capital Improvements
Program, the Town Council shall hold a public hearing thereon after
fifteen (15) days notice thereof in one (1) or more newspapers of
general circulation within the Town. The Town Council may insert new
items or may increase or decrease the items in the fiscal year budget.
Where the Town Council shall increase the total proposed expenditures,
it shall also increase the total anticipated revenues in an amount
at least equal to such proposed expenditures. The fiscal year budget
shall be prepared and adopted in the form of an ordinance. A favorable
vote of at least a majority of all members elected to the Town Council
shall be necessary for adoption.
No public money may be expended without having the approval
of the Town Council. From the effective date of the budget, the general
amounts stated therein as proposed expenditures shall be and become
appropriated for the same general objects and purposes named therein.
(A)
Supplemental Appropriations. If during the fiscal year the Town
Manager certifies that there are available for appropriation, revenues
in excess of those estimated in the budget, the Town Council by ordinance
may make supplemental appropriations for the year up to the amount
of such excess.
(B)
Emergency Appropriations. To meet a public emergency affecting life, health, property or the public good, the Town Council may make emergency appropriations. Such appropriations may be made by emergency ordinance in accordance with the provisions of Section
2.309 (B) of this Charter. To the extent that there are no available unappropriated revenues to meet such appropriations, the Town Council may by such emergency ordinance authorize the issuance of emergency notes which may be renewed from time to time, but the emergency notes and renewals of any fiscal year shall be paid not later than the last day of the fiscal year next succeeding that in which the emergency appropriation was made.
(C)
Reductions. If at any time during the fiscal year it shall appear
to the Town Council that the revenues available will be insufficient
to meet the amount appropriated, the Town Council shall then take
such action, as it deems necessary to prevent or minimize any deficit
and may by ordinance reduce one (1) or more appropriations.
(D)
Limitations, Effective Date. No appropriation for debt service
may be reduced or transferred, and no appropriation may be reduced
below any amount required by law to be appropriated or by more than
the amount of the unencumbered balance thereof. The supplemental and
emergency appropriations, and reduction or transfer of appropriations
authorized by this Section, may be made effective immediately upon
adoption.
Any transfer of funds between appropriations proposed by the
Town Manager or Chief Financial Officer must be approved by the Town
Council before becoming effective.
No officer or employee shall during any fiscal year expend or
contract to expend any money or incur any liability or enter into
any contract which by its terms involves the expenditure of money
for any purpose, in excess of the amounts appropriated for, or transferred
to, that general classification of expenditure pursuant to this Charter.
Any contract, verbal or written, made in violation of this Charter
shall be null and void. Nothing contained in this section, however,
shall prevent the making of contracts or the spending of money for
capital improvements to be financed in whole or in part by the issuance
of bonds, nor the making of contracts of lease or for services for
any period exceeding the budget year in which such contract is made,
when such contract is permitted by law.
All appropriations shall lapse at the end of the budget year
to the extent that they shall not have been expended or lawfully encumbered.
Any unexpended and unencumbered funds shall be considered a surplus
at the end of the budget year and shall be carried into the subsequent
fiscal year in the Town's cash balances.
All fees received by an officer or employee of the Town in his
or her official capacity shall belong to the Town and shall be accounted
for to the Town.
The Town Council shall determine and fix a rate of taxation based upon the most recent assessment after the budget [Section
3.104] has been adopted. The Town Council shall determine and fix a rate of taxation, which will produce approximately the amount of money necessary to defray the expenses of the Town for the current year, including interest on bonded indebtedness, for redemption of maturing bonds, and for maintenance of a sinking fund. The Town tax rate shall be stated in terms of a certain rate on every One Hundred Dollars ($100) of assessed valuation.
The Town Council shall have the power to levy and collect taxes on real property within the limits of the Town, except that which is not assessable and taxable by virtue of any law of the State of Delaware, to defray the expenses of the Town as determined pursuant to Section
3.110. The power to levy and collect taxes includes such amounts as are necessary to pay the principal and interest on general obligation bonds of the Town, for redemption of maturing bonds and for the maintenance of a building fund.
All Town taxes shall be due and payable May first (1st). After
the thirty-first (31st) of August in the year in which the taxes shall
be due, a penalty of one and a half percent (1.5%) per month shall
be added until the same shall have been paid. The Council shall have
the power to make just allowance for delinquencies in the collection
of taxes.
The Council shall provide for an independent audit of all Town
accounts and may provide for more frequent audits, as it deems necessary.
The person or persons selected to audit the accounts of the Town shall
have no personal interest, direct or indirect, in the fiscal affairs
of the Town or any of its officers. An annual audit of the financial
records of the Town shall be made at the end of each fiscal year,
the fiscal year being from May first (1st) of each year to April thirtieth
(30th) of the following year.