Mystery money to be “shifted”

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Tuesday night you people are going to see another razzle-dazzle with city funds within our “complicated” accounting system.
This looks like another opportunity for some of our money to get “tucked away” into one of their “other funds”.
Ordinance No. O2010-37 (Legislative Item 5) deals with sidewalk, curb and gutter repairs and supposedly awards a contract “not to exceed $478,906.45” for this work.
I found the following in the Staff Report, dated May 24, 2010 provided to support this legislation, with items in red copied and pasted exactly:

“City Council passed Resolution of Necessity R2010-08 on April 20, 2010, requiring owners to repair defective concrete.” 

“The property owners have until May 31, 2010 to obtain a permit to complete their work under a private contract and”

“all work must be complete by June 14, 2010.” 

“After this date, the City will include all remaining repair work into this contract with Silverhawke Construction.” 

“All of the concrete repair work is assessed to the property owners; therefore, there is no financial impact to the City.”

“$150,000 is budgeted in the Special Assessment Fund (873) for this project.”

“The remaining $328,906.45 will need to be appropriated to this fund”

“Bids were submitted by 5 contractors for the project on May 21, 2010.”

Let’s ignore the fact that they expected homeowners, who usually have little experience at obtaining, evaluating, and selecting the best bids from contractors, to do so and have their contractors pull permits even more quickly than the City’s highly qualified, well experienced, award winning staff can even make a recommendation to council. That’s a discussion for another day.
Let’s look solely at the financial and accounting aspects of this (and presumably all similar contracts throughout the past, award-winning years):
How much money is in this “Special Assessment Fund (873)”?
Where did it come from?
What happens to any money remaining in this fund at the end of the year, and in years past?
If“All of the concrete repair work is assessed to the property owners; therefore, there is no financial impact to the City.” then why was $150,000 budgeted in the Special Assessment Fund (873) for this project and why will the remaining $328,906.45 will need to be appropriated?

What happens when the assessments, billed and collected by the County along with property taxes, are paid to the city? Where does the money go? Where have such funds gone for all of these previous complicated but award-winning years?
How did staff have any idea as to the quantities for the contractors to base their HALF MILLION DOLLAR bids on? After all, the bids were submitted BEFORE the property owners had to pull permits, and the time allowed for property owners to finish the work does not expire until JUNE 14. 
Certainly at least a few property owners will either hire a contractor or do the work themselves during these difficult economic times if they think they can save a few bucks. What fund do the savings from this Silverhawke contract end up in? (Or does someone in a Historic District just get a new driveway?)
As usual, something stinks, and if you people on Middletown USA don’t raise the flag, no one will do anything about it.
Then again, they’ll probably only “put it in escrow” for a couple of weeks, cut out somebody’s $5K kickback, and talk about how great it was that THEY caught it, like they did with the Central/Vail/Diver boondoggle.