Erica Techo
The 2016-2020 Shelby County Commission.
The first half of fiscal year 2017 have gone by close to on budget, Shelby County Chief Financial Officer Butch Burbage told the Shelby County Commission.
During the commission’s May 22 meeting, Burbage went over a six month financial review with commissioners, comparing the county’s actual to budgeted revenues for 2017 as well as the actual to actual revenues for 2016 compared to 2017.
In the county’s general fund, according to numbers presented by Burbage, revenues are under what was budgeted for real property, motor vehicles, building permits, inmate housing and interest earned, and the total general fund is around $184,000 over budget. Actual revenues for real property were about $77,000 under what was budgeted, but with a budgeted amount of more than $13 million, Burbage said “that’s not a big deal.”
The actual revenues for the total general fund is around half a percent above what Burbage budgeted.
“In accounting terms, that’s about as close as you’re going to get,” Burbage said.
The county’s actual year to date totals from the previous year are used to plan the budget, Burbage said, and he planned for about a 3 percent increase in revenues for FY 2017. Looking at the six month financial review, the county’s revenues were up by 3.27 percent, according to documents presented to the commission.
Looking at the difference between actual and budgeted totals for highway funds, capital improvements, lodging and grants, most differences were within a percentage point, except grant funds. This was up 28.5 percent from what Burbage budgeted and 23.16 percent from last year’s actual revenues. The total difference for these funds, marked “other funds,” was 1.1 percent ahead of the budget and a 1.9 percent increase over last year’s actual revenues.
“We’re real comfortable with where we are at the end of six months,” Burbage said. “We’re real comfortable with the projections we gave.”
With that in mind, Burbage said he doesn’t see any reason why any projects would need to be curtailed “because the budget’s coming in exactly where we thought it would be.”
The commission also heard from Ed Carter, water and environmental services financial services manager, who went over proprietary funds revenues. Most actuals were more than the budget, which was mainly due to the drought, Carter said.
Water services, for example, had actual revenues 55.4 percent more than the budget in part due to around $1 million from the county’s sale of water during the drought.
Also at the meeting, the commission:
- Approved a resolution regarding a bid for erosion control materials. Only one bid was received, so purchases will be made as outlined in state bid law.
- Approved an alcohol license for the Mt Laurel La Paz.
- Approved appointments of Lindsey Allison, Elwyn Bearden, Ed Carter, Jim Fuhrmeister and Alex Dudchock to the Chilton Shelby Mental Health Board.
- Approved ALDOT contracts for proposed bike lanes in Oak Mountain State Park and to resurface U.S. 31 from north of County road 26 to Bishop Creek Bridge.