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City’s income-tax receipts up slightly
By ed runyan
YOUNGSTOWN
Mayor Jay Williams said the city saw a “slight improvement” in income-tax receipts during the last three months of 2010 — a sign of a “gradual improvement and strengthening of the economy.”
Those increased receipts — some of them coming from steel-tube maker V&M Star — helped the city close the $1 million gap it had a month ago in the budget and enabled city council to approve a balanced budget Thursday.
“Employers are reporting higher-than-expected profits. Experts say the economic recovery is under way. It points to a light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.
“Local businesses have indicated a possibility of adding staff,” Williams said, though the nation’s recovery has been for the most part a “jobless recovery.”
The mayor said he hopes that in 2011, with further economic recovery, the city will be able to “more robustly fund economic development and infrastructure improvements.”
The year now ending was not an easy one, Williams said, and required cooperation from department heads to keep spending in line with revenue.
“While we made it through, it was by no means easy,” he said.
Kyle Miasek, deputy finance director, told city council’s finance committee Thursday that the reconciliation budget that the full council approved a short time later Thursday showed a $850,000 surplus for 2010, a slightly smaller surplus than at the end of 2009.
Councilman John R. Swierz said that to arrive at that surplus required the city to sell off assets, such as a building or land, and use certain amounts of money in advance from Youngstown companies.
For instance, V&M provided certain amounts to the city to pay for infrastructure improvements, such as roads, at its new mill site.
Such methods of reconciling the budget at year’s end have been fairly common during his tenure on council, Swierz said. Most cities dealing with financial hardship such as Youngstown do this, though not cities that have a significant budget surplus each year.
The city’s general fund revenue for 2010 was $39.35 million. Expenses were $38.6 million. The general fund is the city’s main operating fund and pays for most government services, such as police and fire protection.