Report casts city finances in positive light

Comptroller John Tuey says revenues in 2017 exceeded expectations and spending was lower than anticipated.

The city ended 2017 on positive financial footing and could use some of its excess unassigned fund balance to pay down outstanding debt or make one-time expenditures, the city comptroller said this week.

John Tuey told the Common Council’s Finance and Audit Committee on Wednesday that Kingston took in $1,218,137 more in revenue than was included in the city’s 2017 budget and spent $1,352,409 less than anticipated. That means the city ended the fiscal year approximately $2.57 million on the positive side, he said.

The figures were included in the unaudited 2017 Annual Financial Report that the city submitted to the state. Tuey said the state is auditing the report and the city should have the results in September. He said the results could change a bit depending on the timing of some city grants but the result still will be favorable.

According to the report, the city’s fund balance increased approximately $1.76 million, from $7,420,013 at the end of 2016 to $9,183,680 at the end of last year. The unassigned fund balance increased nearly $1.46 million over the same period, from $5,519,836 to $6,978,134.

Tuey said the city’s goal is to have an unassigned fund balance that equals 10 to 13 percent of its general fund expenditures on an annual basis. The current unassigned fund balance is 16.41 percent of the city’s 2018 budget, he said. Tuey said his plan, depending on the state audit, is to spend some of the excess.

“You try to find a happy medium of maintaining enough fund balance to meet your obligations to obtain a favorable credit rating but not to accumulate funds that should be returned to the taxpayer,” he said. “The game plan at this point would be to come back and target the use of some of this fund balance to likely pay down either some debt obligations or to use it for onetime expenditures that wouldn’t have a recurring budget implication.”

Tuey said he is looking at paying off some of the city’s pension obligation because it is Kingston’s largest short-term debt. He said paying down debt reduces the future burden put on taxpayers.