As citizens of the village and their elected representatives continue to wait for the release of the FY23-24 (June 1, 2023 – May 31, 2024) annual budget report to learn the sizes of the village budgets’ surpluses or deficits, I will at least highlight a couple of items from the previous year’s FY22-23 budget report. With particular interest about how the village accrues excess dollars, I scanned the FY22-23 annual budget report for larger-than-expected revenue items as well as smaller-than-anticipated expense items. Three items (out of about 900 items) in particular jumped out.
The Board budgeted $10,000 in revenue from Interest & Earnings. However, as interest rates hovered near 5% and the village’s investment portfolio was sizable, the FY22-23 budget report shows that the village earned $247,192 in Interest & Earnings, not $10,000. In other words, the village’s revenue in this category exceeded expectations by $237,192.
Sales Tax revenue was budgeted to bring in $1,550,000 but instead our municipality received $1,781,490. In other words, the village received $231,490 more sales tax revenues in FY22-23 than expected and budgeted for. (Sales Tax revenues often exceed expectations, as the State Comptroller wisely encourages municipalities to make conservative revenue-estimates to protect against downturns in spending.)
Finally, the 5 Contingency line items (to cover unexpected expenses in the General, Water, Sewer, Hydro and Recreation Funds) were funded by the Board for $327,285 at the beginning of the fiscal year. At the end of the fiscal year (i.e. by May 31, 2023), the budget report shows that $114,909 were spent by these 5 contingency items. That means that the village received $212,376 more in (tax) revenue than it spent on its Contingency line items.
Together these 3 items resulted in a net profit to the village of $681,058. To put that in perspective, that amount of money could have been delivered by $2.95 per thousand dollars of village property value. It is very nice to have a big buffer in savings to shield against misfortune, but should the village operate with such profits?
The Board has yet to see the budget report for fiscal year FY23-24 that ended 6 months ago, on May 31, 2024. The Board budgeted $12 million towards operations: how many of those dollars were not necessary? Hopefully the people and their representatives will soon see that annual budget report, with actual end-of-year expenses and revenues, both on the village website as well as an excel version for Trustees to analyze. Without financial data, the Board can not deliver oversight and accountability. I encourage everyone to peruse these documents, or request them from the village Clerk, to gain familiarity with the where and hows of village operations, revenues and expenses.
Local Government Matters 