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Auditor reports 2024 carryover, income tax growth and higher interest earnings at Salem council meeting
Summary
City auditor Sam Salvino told council the city's carryover into 2025 and year-to-date income tax receipts for 2024, reported a 6.05% increase in income tax receipts from 2023 to 2024, and noted a marked rise in interest earnings over two years.
Auditor Sam Salvino gave a year-end financial recap at the Salem City Council's Jan. 28 meeting, reporting carryover figures, income-tax receipts and notable gains in interest earnings.
Salvino said the city's carryover value going into 2025 was reported to council as 1,000,000,379,117.96 (as reported on the provided carryover worksheet). He told council that 2024 income-tax receipts year-to-date totaled about $7.6 million, up from about $7.2 million in 2023 — a 6.05% increase. He said the 1% and quarter-percent levies together produced roughly $6,072,976.60 (1% income tax line) plus levy totals to reach the combined $7.6 million figure he presented.
Salvino also highlighted that since the quarter-percent levy's inception around 2016 the city has collected approximately $11.6 million from that quarter-percent levy, with $1.5 million collected in 2024.
On expenditures and grants, Salvino explained a spike in an administration line item in 2024 attributable to a reimbursable GRAMA (grant) that required an advance from the general fund into the Lincoln Plaza Fund; the auditor said the money will be collected back in 2025. He told the council the city saw a 16% increase in property tax receipts from 2022 to 2024 and noted that intergovernmental grants fell from about $103,000 in 2023 to roughly $750 in 2024, attributable to the receipt in 2023 of a one-time Energy Harbor grant.
Council members pressed Salvino about interest earnings; he said interest income on the city's accounts rose substantially over two years, from the amounts shown on his worksheet (listed as $75,000 in an earlier year to $502,000 and then to $712,000), crediting changes in how the city invested daily sweep account funds and decisions made by the investment board with moving funds into higher-yield accounts while maintaining accessibility within 24 hours.
Salvino summarized the overall financials and offered to meet with council members individually to walk through line items in more detail.
"If anybody has any questions about the particular line items, just shoot me an email or you can come up to the office and visit and we can review that," he said.
