Candidates for Denton mayor and City Council generally agreed Wednesday that the city needs more checks and balances over the spending of public funds.

Candidates in the May 10 election said recent cases of budget overruns in the electric department and city attorney’s office called for closer oversight by the city’s elected leaders.

“We’re trying to fix some of these things from prior administrations who really didn’t have these checks and balances,” Mayor Perry McNeill said during the season’s first candidate forum. “The new director of finance is working like crazy to find these errors that are occurring in the checks and balances.”

Denton lawyer Mark Bur­roughs, one of three people challenging McNeill, said council members couldn’t just blame past city officials.

“These are things that happened now, after [staff] changes have been made,” Burroughs said. “So it’s a current theme.”

The Apartment Association of Greater Dallas sponsored a lunchtime forum at El Guapo’s restaurant.

Candidates for mayor and three council seats answered questions about the city’s progress on property maintenance issues, options for property managers to dispose of bulky trash items and whether the city has sufficient checks on spending.

McNeill called for a review of the city’s financial checkpoints last week following news that its staff attorneys authorized thousands of dollars in legal bills without the council’s approval. Council members also learned recently that the cost of a Denton Municipal Electric building project rose by more than 80 percent without their knowledge. Burroughs and Jerry Mohel­nitzky, a candidate for at-large Place 6, said in both cases the budget was set unrealistically low.

“You have to be proactive and set up the guidelines and the systems that when a budget item is approved, it’s followed,” said Mohelnitzky, 65, an insurance salesman and financial adviser. “And if you’re going to go over a budget, you have to notify people in advance.”

Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Joe Mulroy, 58, is a business owner seeking a third term in Place 6. He said he asked for an external audit of the city’s financial controls after becoming chairman of the council’s Audit and Finance Committee three years ago.

“We were sorely lacking in all departments in systems and procedures and checks and balances,” Mulroy said. “And that’s why some of these old habits ... wouldn’t bubble up to the surface.”

Mulroy said the audit is still under way after stalling during the council’s yearlong search for a new city manager. The city hired George Campbell as city manager in 2006.

“These things just do not happen overnight, and we did lose some time waiting for the permanent city manager,” Mulroy said.

Burroughs, 50, said massive turnover in the finance department created a lack of institutional memory — a problem he said plagues other city departments as well.

“Almost the entire finance staff has quit the city in the last couple of years … and these [new] people are learning their jobs,” Burroughs said. “So I think there will be more surprises.”

McNeill, 71, a retired college professor and engineer seeking his second term as mayor, said council members already tightened the city’s procedures on building projects. They require monthly financial updates for the upcoming expansion and renovation of the police department headquarters at City Hall East, he said.

But the mayor also seemed to distance the council from the electric building and legal fee budget overruns. As policymakers, council members aren’t responsible for keeping tabs on invoices and other day-to-day management issues, he said.

“That’s why we have a city manager form of government,” Mc­Neill said. “They’re the ones that have to check that.”

Entrepreneur Justin Bell, 30, a mayoral candidate, and escrow officer Rudy Moreno, 61, a Place 2 candidate, also called for more internal spending controls. Mayor Pro Tem Pete Kamp, 55, a sales businesswoman who is resigning her Place 2 seat to run for at-large Place 5, said the council is already making progress in that regard.

Other candidates did not respond to the question.

On other topics:

* Several candidates said the council should study reinstating a bulky item trash pickup program, which apartment managers say is needed to dispose of furniture and other large items tenants leave behind.

Apartment association leaders said they worked with the city’s solid waste department over 18 months to develop a program, but the city killed it in 2006 after only six months. City spokesman John Cabrales said he was unaware of the program in question but added that the city does offer three options for tenants to dispose of large trash items.

* Candidates mostly agreed that the council’s committee on property maintenance issues, formed last year, is making progress in its review of deficiencies in current codes.

But Place 2 candidate John Ryan, 42, a real estate businessman, said a lack of key data from city staff members has slowed the pace of the committee’s work. Burroughs and Mohelnitzky said the committee should have been formed in 2006, after property maintenance became a hot topic in the last mayoral race.

“Two years have passed and nothing’s happened,” Burroughs said. “Nothing’s been accomplished.”

Kathy Carlton, director of government affairs for the apartment association, who moderated the forum, said she found candidates’ answers — or silence — revealing.

“There’s clearly some folks that have been involved, know the issues, and others have some catching up to do,” Carlton said. “I also think it showed that there is a real disconnect between the operations of the [city] staff and what City Council knows about. And somehow that communication gap has got to be bridged.”

Carlton said the association’s legislative committee would meet in April to consider making en­dorsements in the Denton races.

LOWELL BROWN can be reached at 940-566-6882. His e-mail address is lmbrown@dentonrc.com .