OVERALL GENERAL FUND BUDGET SHOWS A SURPLUS FOR THE NEXT 4 ½ YEARS!
When it is said that a budget has a deficit, it means that anticipated costs will exceed projected revenues for that year. A recent article in the Eastern Hills Journal stated that the Village’s annual budget would be operating at a deficit at the end of 2013, and according to Clerk Tony Borgerding’s report from last year, that deficit would have left us with an ending bank balance in the General Fund of $234,000. However, due to our proactive approach to reducing expenses Clerk Borgerding now anticipates the ending balance of the General Fund in 2013 will be $934,000 (an increase of $700,000!) and our General Fund reserves will leave us with a positive overall surplus balance for the next 4 ½ years! The Clerk now anticipates that not only will we end 2012 with a surplus of over $1,000,000 again, but will be in good shape through the year 2016 (See circled figures below). This is the result of looking ahead and cutting expenses before we found ourselves in the same predicament as other communities. At a time when many local governments are having to cut services to the ‘bare bone’, eliminate jobs, and/or raise taxes, the Village of Mariemont continues to thrive. We have been very creative in finding ways to save your tax dollars. While we have made reductions in personnel, going from 24 full-time employees to 18, we have not had to do away with any services. In the past 12 months, we have saved money by having the Village Solicitor and Engineer attend just one Council meeting each month, using trees from the Mayor’s Tree Farm instead of buying new ones, using postage stamps instead of leased postage meters in the Tax and Administration offices, and raised fines for traffic citations. We have pulled out all those traffic citations we had deemed “uncollectible’ and enlisted the services of a collection agency to seek payment for them with very good results. We have assigned many maintenance tasks at the Municipal Building to our Fire Department, including maintaining police vehicles and mowing the grass there. Tax Administrator Darlene Judd resigned her full-time position and began working part-time, saving the Village in salary and benefit costs. We are no longer paying overtime for the Police Clerk to attend Mayor’s Court or for the Administrative Assistant to attend Council meetings, allowing them equal time off instead. Our Police, Fire, and Service Departments continue to apply for and receive grant money. We contracted with Duke Energy Retail for a 15% reduction in our electricity rate. The trash recycling program has led to an ever-increasing amount of recycling being collected resulting in $17,000 received from the Hamilton County Residential Recycling Incentive Program. (Placing recycling cans in all our parks helped us to become the #1 recycling community in the county.) We continue to pay for the fireworks display through donations. Collectively, these measures have added up to big savings that have resulted in a huge improvement in our financial outlook. The many volunteers in the Village have done a great deal to help us keep costs down and we will continue to look to them for the invaluable help they provide. We added more positions to our Swim Commission and Parks Advisory Board to expand the number of volunteers in these groups. Furthermore, we continue to look for ways to help our local businesses grow and increase our tax base and we have seen a 13% increase in payroll taxes. We are working hard to be good stewards of your hard-earned tax dollars. As you can see, we are doing everything possible to avoid having to ask for any additional tax dollars. No doubt we have taken quite a few blows from the State in the past two years. But through hard work, we are very fortunate to have a projected overall surplus balance of over $1,000,000 at the end of 2012 and over $900,000 for the end of 2013 and will be in good shape through 2016. Some officials are making statements that the glass is half empty, but I feel it is half full…maybe even three quarters full!