WHITMIRE — Whitmire Town Council discussed its preliminary numbers for the town’s 2017-2018 fiscal year budget in a called meeting last Tuesday. A balanced budget has to be presented by June 30.
“Anticipated income on the town’s side versus anticipated expenditures I was $35,038 over. That means the more revenue, the less spending. Thanks to Carla Taylor, we found $24,000 that I had missed. So that brings it down to about $11,000 we’ve got to find,” said Mayor Billy Hollingsworth.
On the town’s side, Hollingsworth said the town’s income went from $663,000 last year to $673,000 in 2017 and with the added $24,000 will bring the total income to $697,000. The Town of Whitmire needs to find the $11,000 in either income or reductions.
Regarding the budget on the town’s water, the proposed budget is $902,630.
“As of right now, the proposed expenditures will total at $899,686, but we just added $5,000 to that on pumps and motors because we know that one is going to cost about $12,000 that we have to purchase, but that will be in next year’s budget,” said Hollingsworth.
In the proposed budget on water and sewer, through nine months, the Town of Whitmire has taken in 80.81 percent of the budget, which Hollingsworth said is over, saying it should be around 73 percent. Hollingsworth said that the town will be taking in close to $900,000 this year.
“The only thing that we may have to put more in, depending on what we do on the projects we’re working on is engineering fees,” said Hollingsworth.
The total on sewer through March was about 4 percent above budget, and showed to be right on budget on the water side.
“We’re not going to be that much over income. We’re actually going to end up about $15,000 above income, so that’s still pretty good,” said Hollingsworth.
Hollingsworth also advised Council that power will be off in the Town of Whitmire on May 14 from 12:01 a.m. until 4 a.m. due to upgrades and work on sub-stations.
The final topic discussed in the budget session was police fines. The town has taken in $131,000 so far this year in fines, only putting $130,000 in the budget. Sixty percent of the police fines goes back to the state.
“At the rate we’re going this year, we’re going to be taking in about $165,000 this year, another $45,000,” said Hollingsworth.