07 Move to approve the June 2008 Financial Report as presented

Home Browse Search

City of Paris June 2008 Financial Report-Comments Net to Date Comparison of Revenues: 1. Property tax collections are 0.92% behind this time last year. 2. Sales taxes are down 1.98% for the year. June collections were up 21 % compared to June 2007 because of an audit adjustment by the State Comptroller. The Comptroller regularly reviews the exemption claims of businesses. When the Comptroller disallows a claimed exemption, City collections will reflect an appropriate increase. However, sometimes businesses pay sales tax but request the State Comptroller to render an opinion on the exemption of certain sales on which sales tax has been collected. If the Comptroller rules in favor of the company, the City would see an audit adjustment that decreases the City's collections in the month that such a ruling was made. It usually takes months for the Comptroller to review exemption claims so audit adjustments normally come on sales which took place months in the past and not current sales. 3. Hotel tax receipts are down 6.35%. 4. Franchise fees are up 4.37% compared to last year. 5. Permits are down substantially due to the unusually large permit issued to Kimberly Clark last year that amounted to over $45,000 in permit fees. If not for the KC permit, overall permit fees would be up compared to last year. 6. Court fines are up 17.09% continuing the pattern of increase established last year. Municipal Court has seen a noticeable increase in cases. 7. The Leases & Grants number also included interest earned on the General Fund. A decrease in interest earnings accounts for most of this line item decrease. 8. EMS fees are up 10.45% on heavy call volume. 9. General Fund Miscellaneous Revenue is up 61.92°/a primarily due to receiving $111,774 as a guarantee of construction on improvements at the site of the two new hotels being constructed. 10. Total General Fund revenue to date is up $232,346 or 1.3% compared to last year. General Fund expenditures are up $1,269,924 or 9.5% above where they were at the end of June last year. The completion of June places the City 75% through the budget year. Year to date expenditures in the General Fund are 69.88% of the General Fund budget. 11. Sewer revenue is down 2.03% due to an overall decrease in the residential winter average. The winter average dropped from 650 cubic feet to 625 cubic feet this past year. The winter average establishes residential sewer charges for a one year period at a fixed amount. Thus, water sales can increase or decrease without a corresponding increase or decrease in sewer revenue. The City went to this flat winter average methodology some years ago to make sewer revenue more predictable for budgeting purposes. 12. Water revenue is up 2.26%. 13. Water & Sewer interest is down due to lower interest rates. 14. Water & Sewer Miscellaneous is up due to the increased service fees adopted as part of the 2007 rate study. 1 O[lU057