City of Jamestown Finishes 2021 with $1.7 Million Surplus

Comptroller Ryan Thompson presents budget update to City Council Finance Committee

The City of Jamestown finished 2021 with a $1.7 million surplus.

Comptroller Ryan Thompson presented on year end financials for 2021 to Jamestown City Council members Monday night at their work session.

He said budgeted revenues for 2021 were $35,124,000 with budgeted expenditures at $35,560,000 for an anticipated deficit of $436,000, “The actual results, here at the bottom, you can see our revenues were $37,358,000; which was $2.2 million above the original budget. And then from an expenditure standpoint, we were pretty much flat at $35.6 million, $69,000 higher than what was originally budgeted, so pretty flat there. So from that standpoint, we end up with a surplus of $1.7 million.”

Thompson cited sales tax revenues of $7.96 million being 18.5% over budget, state aid was over budget by $114,456 or 2.6%, state highway aid over budget by $1 million, and health and dental insurance under budget by $1 million dollars as the highlights.

He said parking meters, lots, and parking violations revenues were down 42%, or $197,000, from what was budgeted. Thompson said Police and Fire salaries were over budget $300,000 due to contract raises.

Thompson said the city’s fund balance is now at $7.7 million dollars with the unassigned fund balance at $5.7 million dollars, “The New York State GFOA, Government Finance Officers Association, they recommend that you have your unassigned fund balance at two months of expenditures and that’s for us about $6.4 million. So we’re not quite there yet, but we’re certainly headed in the right direction. The only other caveat I want to mention on this is we have received over the last six or seven years an additional $1 million from New York State. Without that, we wouldn’t have the fund balance that we have now.”

Thompson said the city did not receive that $1 million from the state in 2021.

Thompson said there haven’t been any surprises for the first quarter financials for 2022. He said the Board of Public Utilities‘ PILOT revenues for electric, water, sewer, and solid waste are up 3% from budget. He said parking lots and ramps are still not generating enough revenue to cover expenses with net losses for the first three months of 2022 coming in at $9,622.

Thompson said with the new EMS billing in the fire department, the city is running ahead of budget, “We’ve already received 68% of what we budgeted in 2022. For the first four months, we’re averaging about $28,000 a month. And if you annualize that out, that’s roughly $335,000. We only budgeted $164,000, so that’s certainly a plus there. We could end up $171,000 over budget.”

Thompson said he expects to receive the first quarter sales tax payment this week and will report on that at the May 16 work session.

On the expenditure side, he said he expects gas expenses to be $130 to 150-thousand dollars over budget for the year, which he hopes will be offset by sales tax revenues. Thompson added that road salt expenses are in line with what had been expended at this time in the last two years and the city should be in good shape for the fall-winter season.