Hamilton officials projecting a budget surplus

So far this year, costs are little bit lower than expected, councillors told

Hamilton is on pace to have a 2018 operating budget surplus of $4.3 million.

So far this year, the city has revenues of $210.8 million, compared to $206.5 million in expenses, says Brian McMullen, the city’s acting general manager of corporate finance. McMullen revealed the information at Wednesday’s audit, finance and administration committee meeting.

“It’s nice to see you are on the positive side of the ledger,” said Ancaster Coun. Lloyd Ferguson. “You do that doom and gloom negative variances (in the past) ... the media eats that up. I’m glad you have switched that.”

Hamilton’s healthy and safe communities department had the largest budget surplus of $5.2 million, followed by the planning department with a $494,000 surplus so far this year.

Public works, though, defied the trend and posted a $2.2 million deficit at this time. McMullen blamed lower than expected transit revenues, declining revenues from recyclable material, the impact of the Disabled and Aged Regional Transit System (DARTS) contract and winter control as the main culprits for the deficit.

It is also expected, said Ferguson, the city will see the public works budget take an additional hit this year because of problems with the recently shuttered central composting facility because of odour problems.

Also, the corporate services department had a $314,000 deficit, mainly because of a decline in tax registration revenue.

Hamilton had a very good year financially in 2017 with an estimated $43 million in combined rate and tax supported budget. It was the largest surplus some councillors had seen in years, if ever.

The city had a $24.9 million tax-supported budget surplus and an $18.1 million rate-supported budget surplus.

The surplus was divided up and placed in various reserve funds that had been depleted over the years.