Despite what has been painted by many governmental entities as a gloomy financial picture, the city of Trenton, with much hard work from its department heads and members of the city council’s Finance committee, is looking at a tight budget in 2003-2004, but one that will still leave a healthy balance for the city when the year ends on April 30, 2004.
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Despite what has been painted by many governmental entities as a gloomy financial picture, the city of Trenton, with much hard work from its department heads and members of the city council’s Finance committee, is looking at a tight budget in 2003-2004, but one that will still leave a healthy balance for the city when the year ends on April 30, 2004.
With two months of revenues still to be collected, the city is already looking at collections of $2,012,990.35 through the end of February. That is just over $137,000 more than had been projected as a revenue source for the current year ($1,875,370). So instead of a budget deficit of $59,100 projected a year ago, the city is now looking at revenues outpacing expenditures by over $150,000. As a result, the city anticipates starting the new fiscal year with a fund balance of $1,022,284.
Faced with increased expenditures for the coming year, most notably for insurance costs, and the anticipation that revenues will come in less than the current year, the city expects the fund balance to go down over $100,000 during the course of the new fiscal period.
The budget that will go to the Trenton City Council within the next two weeks shows anticipated revenues of $1,923,370 while expenditures are listed at $2,276,141. Coupled with a $235,000 transfer from the road use fund for use by the street department, the city is projecting a deficit of $117,771 for the coming year, much less than had previously been thought.
“Knowing how other entities are seeing their revenue sources decrease, we went into this with the same mindset and asked that the department heads be very frugal in their requests,” City Administrator Kerry Sampson. “They did a great job of asking for only what they felt was absolutely necessary to operate their departments and because of that, we are able to keep ourselves in good financial shape.”
The city council’s Finance Committee worked closely with department heads to develop this year’s budget, using a new process in which members of the council were involved in work from the beginning.
“Before, department heads would present a list of requests to the city staff and we (Sampson and City Clerk Cindy Simpson) would sit down and pare that list down before taking it to the finance committee,” Sampson said. “This year, the council had asked to be more involved in the process, so they’ve been on board from the start, which I think has been good in that they have seen just how difficult it can be to decide the priorities and what would be of benefit to the most people.”
Most of the city’s revenue will come from taxes, which is being projected at $1,288,000 for the coming year. This includes an estimate of $355,200 in capital improvements sales tax monies. The remainder of revenues come from intergovernmental services ($230,000), charges for services ($247,800), licenses and permits ($49,000), fines ($26,250), interest ($27,000) and miscellaneous ($55,320).
Over half of the expenditures in the new budget will be made in the police and street departments, which have been projected to have budgets of $745,181 and $677,204 respectively. Other departmental budget figures include administrative, $297,538; fire, $272,728; non-departmental, $143,692; airport, $75,118; and economic development, $64,680.
The city is looking at $463,851 in capital project expenditures for the coming year, of which $355,200 will be paid for by the capital improvements sales tax. Other monies will come from the road use tax, which will be used to pay for street-related items.
The street department will spend $290,817 of the capital projects money, including $159,311 that will be used in the street overlay program. Another $81,506 is being designated for a new pickup, a new pickup chat spreader, a new wire welder and rock, sand and asphalt cement for maitenance work. Another $50,000 has been set aside for stormwater work.
The fire department will spend $75,953 of the capital projects money, including $35,000 to replace an old pumper truck that has been repaired repeatedly over the past several years. Another $11,000 has been set aside for a vehicle for the fire chief and $1,693 for new fire hose. There is also $28,260 allocated for the payment on the ladder truck.
The police department will spend $26,350, including $10,350 for computer software upgrade and equipment, $11,000 for one police car and $5,000 for an animal control vehicle.
“That was one of the decisions that the police department made, was to replace just one car rather than two, which is what we have been doing in the past,” Sampson said. “The $5,000 would be used to help fix up the current animal control vehicle we have, which runs well but needs some body work.”
There has been $28,000 set aside for non-departmental expenditures from the capital projects tax,, including $15,000 for OATS, $8,000 for codification of the city ordinances and $5,000 for the city’s sidewalk replacement program. Other monies include $20,000 for demolition work, $5,000 for work at the proposed industrial development park site and $17,731 in MAMU bond payments for the city complex.
The new budget includes a 15 percent jump in health insurance costs, which Sampson noted was high, but was much less than the city had anticipated when it was thought the increase wold be 25 percent.
“With that being the case, we were able to save some money and use it in other areas,” he said.
That savings helped the city give its employees a 2 percent across-the-board salary increase.
“Our employees do such a good job and have been great this year in keeping down expenses, so this was something that we were fortunate enough to be able to do for them,” he said. “It isn’t as much as what we would like, but at least it’s something.”
With the increases, department head salaries will include (salaries, without FICA, insurance or LAGERS) Sampson, $61,745; City Clerk Cindy Simpson, $37,675; Police Chief Bob Lewis, $39,036; Fire Chief Tony Ralston, $34,661; Assistant City Administrator for Economic Development Rick Childers, $44,800; Street Supervisor Larry Griffin, $43,700; and Airport Supervisor John Beier, $19,802.
On the utility side, TMU is looking at gross revenues of $7,860,300 and expenditures of $6,523,500. Adding in depreciation of $855,000, the utility is looking at a net profit of $481,000. By department, revenues are listed at $5,195,000 for electric, $1,576,000 for water and $1,089,300 for sanitation. Expenditures are $4,841,800 in electric, $1,031,900 in water and $649,800 in sanitation. After depreciation, the department net profits are $8,200 in electric; $284,100 in water; and $189,500 in sanitation.
As in the case of the city, great care was taken in keeping expenditures to what was deemed necessary. In the electric department, capital outlay expenditures are listed at $871,000, with the largest expense being the outright purchase of a new generator. TMU plans to spend $195,000 to purchase one and will finance six others, with the first payment of $200,000 included in the budget. Many of the other expenditures in the electric budget are for replacement of current equipment as well as items needed for repair work.
The water department is projecting a capital outlay of $493,500, with the biggest expense, $150,000, being for the main replacement program. Money has also been set aside for new water meters, $20,000; upgrading of the SCADA system, $35,000; and equipment replacement at the water plant.
The sanitation department has a capital expenditure of $606,5000, with the largest expenditure being $300,000 for the Tinsman Avenue project. Another $60,000 has been set aside for sewer main replacement while $50,000 will be used to replace a lift station on Sunnyside Drive.
On both the city and utility side, monies have been set aside to upgrade computer hardware and software as the city continues efforts to become “networked.”
“We’re trying to get to the point where software between departments is compatible and that all the systems work with one another,” Sampson said.
The utility budget also includes capital outlay plans in all three departments for the next six years, with known expenditures being listed to keep the utility on target with its capital improvement plan to upgrade and replace aging infrastructure.
“We’ve made a lot of progress in the past several years and we don’t want to fall back now,” Sampson said. “Having this plan keeps us aware of what we are facing in the future.”
TMU employees also received a 2 percent across-the-board salary increase. TMU Director Chad Davis will receive a salary of $47,940 while comptroller Theresa Price will receive $42,540.
Both budgets will be presented to the council for final approval either at the regular meeting on April 14 or at a special meeting prior to that time. The budget documents, once approved, will be available for public inspection.