JAMESTOWN – A mild winter and lower employee salaries have helped to put the city of Jamestown under budget for this past year. That’s according to City Comptroller Joe Bellitto, who delivered the final, unaudited numbers for 2012 to city lawmakers last night, showing the city was $258,000 under budget.
During his presentation, Bellitto said the city’s expenditures came in at $32,514,000 – which was $685,000 below budget. According to Bellitto, there were a couple of reasons for the decrease… mainly a mild winter both at the beginning and end of 2012 – which reduced the amount of hours city highway crews had to work. He says a number of retirements from 2011 and new hires for 2012 also drove wages down.
Although the city was well below budget in expenses, it also failed to bring in as much in revenue in 2012. While the city budgeted for just over $32,484,000, the total revenue came in at $32,256,000 – which is a difference of about $228,000.
When preparing the budget, the city had expected its revenue to be lower than expenditures and as a result it budgeted $715,000 from its fund balance – or “rainy day fund” – to offset that difference. However, because the expenditures came in far lower than anticipated, the city only needed to use $457,000 of that money to close the gap.
Before being finalized, the 2012 budget must first go through an independent audit. Local CPA John Trussalo will review the numbers and deliver his audit later this year.
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