Auditors on Feb. 2 will tell the Fayetteville City Council that the General Fund budget for FY 2011 that ended July 31 shows revenues slightly ahead of expenses. Fayetteville in 2007 anticipated the recession and economic downturn and began making adjustments to personnel and other expenditure area to offset falling revenues.
The Fayetteville General Fund budget accounts for the majority of revenues received and funds expended in the operations of the city, including administration, judicial activities, public safety, public works, housing and development and debt service.
Revenues during FY 2011 totaled $9.2 million. That represents a decrease of $538,000 from the previous year. Meantime, expenditures for the period totaled $9.169 million, a decrease of $489,000 from the previous year.
Revenue decreases came from several budget categories. Those included a $552,000 decrease in fines and forfeitures and a $117,000 decrease in intergovernmental revenues. Also during the period the city saw a $223,000 increase in franchise taxes and business/occupational taxes.
Having mirrored the recession and the continuing downward economic trend, the audit noted that revenues have declined over the past four years, with those decreases intensifying in the past two years. Revenues have seen an annual decline of $700,000, or 7.1 percent, since 2007 while since 2009 the annual decrease amounted to $920,0000, or 9.1 percent.
Accordingly, expenditures have also decreased during the same time frame. Expenditures decreased 5.7 percent since 2007 and 9.4 percent since 2009, the audit showed.
Auditors Mauldin and Jenkins noted that, based on the trends, the city will continue to have to closely monitor all expenditures.
Fayetteville’s budget year runs from August through July.
The City Council in 2007, with the insistence of finance staff, correctly anticipated the recession prior to its acknowledgement on the local, state and national levels. It was at that time that the city began instituting a number of measures aimed at reducing expenses. Many of those measures continue today.
