City Health Insurance Numbers Fail to Add Up

How does the City of San Angelo end FY 2012 with a $1.57 million health fund balance and begin FY 2013 with only $915,000 in the same account?  What happened to $655,000 at the stroke of midnight?

It's hard to tell given the finance department's recent history with health insurance.

FY 2012 saw city leaders maintaining budget fiction to the bitter end. 

Despite Council's approval of the Community exclusive provider arrangement which saved nearly $500,000, the budget was never updated for the public in the 2011-2012 FY.  The City stuck to its $7.9 health insurance million budget, only showing a $6.4 million when the final 2012-2013 budget was released.  Oddly, the Health Insurance Fund Balance is based on the prior 2012-2013 budget of roughly $8 million. The City Budget document shows $6.4 million for health insurance on page 122 and $8 million on page 91.  This is transparently bad financial management because it doesn't paint a consistent, much less clear picture.

Did city leaders siphon off $655,000 in health fund balance for other needs?  They diverted $250,000 to an investment account the year before.  I've yet to see that transferred back. 

At the end of 2012 the City seemed flush with cash, the $1.57 million plus the $343,000 in unused ERRP funding.  This $1.9 million somehow got whittled down to a projected $572,000 for the fiscal year about to end.

It's incongruous that the City had a bad year experience wise, given health insurance projections are $500,000 lower for the coming year.  The numbers don't add up.  

Update 8-19-13:  The City changed its budget projections. restoring the $655,000 in missing fund balance in its latest budget update..  It did keep the nonsensical $500,000 projected savings though.