Treasurer: Departments must keep costs down

Despite falling revenue, Shelbyville's treasurer says that he anticipates a balanced budget by the end of the year if department heads continue to keep costs down.

Hard economic times continue to impact the city's numbers, with revenue for the month ending Oct. 31 at $290,146 under what was budgeted.

However, expenses have been kept low, with city departments spending $202,454 less than what city treasurer Gary Cantrell had budgeted for this point in the budget cycle, resulting in a deficit of $87,692.

"We have so little in the way of reserves that we have to live year to year," Cantrell said. "We have to make our expenses match our revenues."

Unappropriated revenue, such as property taxes, sales taxes and other income, still remains with a shortfall of four percent -- $174,303 under what was expected.

"I don't expect it to get better, but that's the way you play it in the world of accounting," Cantrell explained. "You don't anticipate good things that might not happen."

Cantrell says he expects that the city's revenue stream "will keep going the same way."

"It's not like a business where you can sit down and have a strategy session on how to raise more revenues. Within the departments, they can do their best, but they're pretty limited ...you have to grin and bear it and try to keep it within range (of the budget)."

Keeping costs down

The Shelbyville Airport has been hit hard with a reduction in fuel sales of over 30 percent, causing a $87,451 variance in that department's revenue.

But the numbers also show that expenses for the airport were kept down in October by a total of $55,774.

Cantrell said that the airport probably suffered earlier due to the economy than any other department, but added that airport manager Hank Williamson has done a good job keeping his budget balanced during this tough time.

There are also uncontrolled expenses, such as the city's insurance with the Tennessee Municipal League (TML), which can not be anticipated and emergency spending, like the recent contribution the city council voted to make to the Argie Cooper Public Library to deal with the failure of a climate control unit.

"Those are things we don't have any control over at all ... whatever the insurance rate is set by TML, that's what we pay," Cantrell explained.

Cantrell also said that so far, the state has only been collecting delinquent business taxes, which were previously collected by the city and will be taking over the collection all businesses taxes as of Jan. 1, with the first filing deadline under the new rules slated for Feb. 28.

Fortunately, Cantrell also said the city has a little more revenue coming than he anticipated - the TVA in-leu-of taxes, which he said came in early than he expected and was about $3,000 more than was budgeted, at around $41,000.

Retirement worries

But while money coming in to the city is down, departments around Shelbyville are tightening their belts to cope.

For example, while revenue at the Shelbyville Recreation Center is down $13,488 for the month of October, expenses were cut in that department by $27,555.

The same goes for the streets department -- short $15,958 for October revenue, but saving a total of $67,911 in expenses.

"That's really our objective -- it is within our power to keep spending to what we're bringing in," Cantrell said.

And Cantrell believes the city of Shelbyville "will be pretty close to zero" -- a balanced budget by the end of the fiscal year -- "if nothing unforeseen comes up."

However, looking at the future, Cantrell says that the city's retirement fund could cause some problems next year, where the city has to put money in to balance what is being paid out in the fund.

The retirement fund is balanced out over a 20-year period, so that the single year fluctuations don't "hit you as hard," Cantrell explained.

But another year of a bad economy could push it "in the wrong direction, and we don't have any great increases foreseen in our revenue."

"We have enough to get through the year, it's only the next year that I'm concerned about," he said.