Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Budget Finance topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Finance director: Red Bluff's general fund showing continued declines; sales-tax quarter-percent shortfall covered by reserves
Summary
Finance Director Paul presented a fourth-quarter budget update showing multi-year declines in the general fund balance, department variances driven largely by vacancies and capital timing, and concerns that a quarter-percent sales-tax shortfall is being covered by the general fund.
Finance Director Paul presented the city's fourth-quarter budget update on Oct. 21, telling the council that estimated actuals for the prior fiscal year and the current budget picture show continuing pressure on the general fund.
Paul said the city closed the last fiscal year with variances that were generally positive against budget but that the overall picture remains one of declining reserves. "Currently it's looking like the general fund will be decreasing about 1 point, to $9,000,000," Paul told the council. He said the accounting closes are not final and that the city was still working on a few adjustments.
Paul detailed department-level variances: a positive variance in investments due to fair-market-value adjustments; a nearly $919,000 variance in fire driven in part by reimbursement timing and workers' compensation; and roughly $1.2 million of savings in the police department largely attributable to vacancies. He reported about $3.2 million of positive variance between the adopted budget and estimated actuals for the prior year, driven by timing on capital projects and personnel vacancies.
On revenues, Paul said the quarter-percent sales-tax measure that funds some ongoing costs has been underperforming and that "the expenditures that we added due to that quarter's sales tax has now exceeded the amount of revenues we've gotten and, it's consistently going down." He said the general fund is currently covering that shortfall and staff will continue to monitor sales-tax receipts and salary savings from unfilled positions.
Paul also presented a four-year comparison showing fund balance declines and reiterated the city's reserve policy target (15% of general fund expenditures). He said the finance team had no recommendation at the meeting to change the current fiscal year budget but will continue tracking revenue and vacancy-driven savings and will present updated estimated actuals in future quarters.
Councilmembers thanked Paul for the detail and work preparing the report; no immediate budget adjustments were made at the meeting.
