File photo.
CFO Cheryl Naugher shared a revenue update at the Sept. 26, 2022 Shelby County Commission Meeting
All four tax categories have positive budget variances going into the last month of FY22.
Shelby County CFO Cherly Naugher shared a revenue update during the Sept. 26 Shelby Commission meeting.
Commissioner Lindsey Allison said that the important issue is that it looks like the county is "rolling in the dough", but that’s not the case.
“Our estimator [Naugher] does a very good job of being very conservative and tries to keep our operation expenses to a minimum in anticipation of problems in the future,” Allison said. “I always get nervous when you show the report because we look so good. The truth of the matter is that we’re trying to be really conservative with our operational expenses because we don’t know what’s coming.”
Here are the numbers 11-month YTD actual over budget through Aug. 2022:
- Highway Gas Tax & Rebuild Taxes: $947,289. These two categories were up 10.79% and 26.12%
- Lodging Tax: $2,183,316. There is still a steady increase in lodging, which is up overall year to date by 15%, Naugher said. However, there was no increase was seen from visitors to The World Games in July 2022.
“This is 15% over the adjusted budget rate. We did an amendment in the budget projecting more revenues in March,” said County Manager Chad Scroggins. “We didn't have XTERRA this year, which is a huge draw for us. So, I think that 15% is with an asterisk- that's showing our investment is paying off already.”
- Rental Tax: $2,461,614. Naugher said it’s more fluctuating than the other taxes, but is still up 13% year to date over the budget.
- Sales Tax: $1,522,160. Even with the large budget increase approved in March, Naugher said these numbers still came in 7.5% above budget for the year.
Scroggins said that the county saves money so it never has to borrow money.
“We always come in under budget with our expenses,” Scroggins said. “That gap both with savings of our expenses and overages of our revenues are put into fund balance reserves for future projects. We can invest those funds back into the infrastructure of our county. That's what makes us significantly different from other counties in our state.”
Commission chair Kevin Morris said the one thing he heard from the evening’s financial conversation is the consistency to get better.
“We are able to adjust the budget mid year end and still retain very good percentages,” he said. “We've been able to spend money prudently and advance the county in a lot of ways. It speaks volumes to the staff we have across the board.”