Page 25 - Watauga FY21 Budget
P. 25
BUDGET MESSAGE FOR FY 2020-2021
of $0.580404/$100 is $930.56, up from $885.95 last year. This represents a
monthly cost of $77.55 for the City to provide services such as police and fire
protection, parks and recreation and library services.
Sales Tax Collections
The second major financial consideration that guides the development of the
budget for the upcoming year is the projection of sales tax revenues. Sales tax
revenues comprise 22% of General Fund (GF) revenues. We are forecasting
FY2019-2020 sales tax revenues to be 8% lower than the FY2019-2020 original
expectations due to the pandemic and are forecasting sales tax for FY2020-2021
to be 2% above FY2019-2020 estimates. This represents a 6% decline from
2019-2020 original expectations.
$7,000,000
$6,000,000
$5,000,000
$4,000,000
$3,000,000
$2,000,000
$1,000,000
$0
FY12 FY13 FY14 FY15 FY16 FY17 FY18 FY 19 FY 20 FY 21
est est
GF EDC CCD STREET MAINTENANCE
General Fund Expenditures
The operating expenditures including transfers for the General Fund are
$13,385,570. This is a $648,573, or a 5% decrease over last year’s budgeted
expenditures. The City experienced increases in some operational costs such as
attorney fees, and other operational costs. However, these were offset by savings from
position eliminations and the unfunding/freezing various positions. In addition, the
CARES grant funding will provide reimbursement for COVID-19 related expenses. As
discussed earlier, the recreation department was reorganized and the department
expenses decreased by $399,310 with salary savings through staffing reductions, in
addition to some programming cost elimination. The Public Works Department and
Library also had significant decreases in their budget this year due to salary savings
due to unfunded/frozen positions, particularly in the Street Division. The City has
reallocated some of the salary expense to the CARES Act Grant Fund this year for
COVID Response activities. For this budget year, medical insurance costs stayed the
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