FINANCE
Finance Director: Melanie Landis
Email: mlandis@ottawaks.gov
101 S. Hickory
Ottawa, KS 66067
785-229-3600
The mission of the Financial Department
is to promote the effective and efficient use of
financial resources, to protect city assets and to
provide administrative, clerical and record keeping
support for the City of Ottawa, Kansas.
The department provides services in four core business areas: Utility billing and collections, clerk services, budget preparation, and financial management. The nature of these and other initiatives assigned to the department entails support to the Governing Body, the City Manager’s office, other city departments and the citizens of the community. In addition, the department provides leadership and expertise in the development of legislation and policy initiatives to the City Manager’s Office.
Finance plays a key role in the development of the annual
budget, financial planning and monitoring, accounting,
bookkeeping and treasurer duties. Additional responsibilities
include the coordination and development of policies with
respect to investments, as well as, responsibility for forecasting
and monitoring, and issuance of debt. This department
develops and provides advice and recommendations on
matters relating to taxation and licensing, analyzes, designs
options, provides information, offers advice and
recommendations, implements adopted legislative measures
and provides administrative support to carry out priorities as
established by the governing body. In addition, the department
assists in the implementation of tax relief programs,including: economic development tax abatements, industrial revenue bonds, and tax increment financing. Functions include: accounts payable, debt issuance, utility billing, meter reading, utility collections, accounting, and bookkeeping; processing various payments, fines and fees, reports and refunds; monitoring and collecting outstanding receivables, carrying out enforced collection procedures when required, processing applications for the Utility Assistance Program; registration and licensing for the retail sale of alcohol, cereal malt beverages and tobacco, animals, taxi services and itinerant vendors.
Treasurer functions include responsibility for monitoring the city’s cash flow requirements; cash management of all funds; the timely receipt and deposit of all municipal revenues to ensure on-time payment of monies to minimize short-term finance charges; administration of outstanding debt; payroll, data processing and utility billing; investment management and oversight of city’s health insurance. Additional responsibilities include management of the Data Processing and Meter Reading functions. Data Processing controls the city’s main informational equipment including an IBM A/S400 system, which operates and provides backup to the payroll, general ledger and utility billing systems. The Meter Readers use an ITRON reading device to collect data in the field, which is downloaded to the city’s computer system and used to calculate utility bills for Ottawa’s 6,000 electric and 5,000 water customers. In addition, support and backup services are provided to the Human Resource Department, working closely with the director to fulfill those duties in the absence of the director. Duties in this area include: KPERS, KPF and ICMA retirement programs, health insurance and cafeteria plan tracking, as well as, assisting employees with benefit and retirement decisions.
