City general fund finished 2006 in black, commission told
By Scott Rochat
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Emporia’s general fund ended 2006 under budget and with cash in the bank, administrative services director Larry Bucklinger told the city commission Wednesday.
The city had had to revise its general fund budget extensively in 2006 after a $700,000 shortfall was reported in February. That new budget projected $14,667,588 in revenue and $14,342,341 in expenses for a net $325,247 gain.
Revenues came in lower than expected, but so did expenses. The net result left the city in the black by $455,268. On top of that, the general fund even had a higher cash carryover than projected — $388,828 instead of $134,742.
That made for a nice change after having to borrow $700,000 from utility funds just to keep things level from 2005.
“Last year was, to say the least, a challenging year,” Bucklinger said.
The utility funds will be completely repaid by the end of 2008.
There were some surprises as the year went on. For example the city collected $646,125 in court fines and fees, nearly $120,000 below projections.
“That’s fairly substantial,” Mayor Jim Kessler said. “Our case load is up, but our income was down.”
“We couldn’t come up with a single large item to pin it on,” Bucklinger said.
In general, Bucklinger said, expenses were carefully watched throughout the year.
“Anything that could be delayed or postponed, we did,” he said.
That’s fine, Commissioner Ray Toso said, but it shouldn’t be taken too far. He pointed to a recent request by the fire and ambulance service for new extrication equipment, a thermal imaging camera and two AutoPulse devices for CPR.
“I know we have been watching our pennies, but the first I was aware of the critical nature of some of this equipment was in the county meeting the other day,” Toso said, referring to a Jan. 10 joint meeting with the Lyon County Commission. “If we’re going to have an ambulance service, they should have equipment that works. Also, I don’t like the idea of having to borrow a thermal imaging camera from Olpe.”
In other action:
-- The commission met over lunch with the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission. Among other things, the two bodies talked about how to make sure the planning commission gets a chance to review capital improvement projects that weren’t anticipated in the comprehensive plan.