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Haymarket rectifies $194K budget shortfall
The Town of Haymarket will not be taking in as much revenue as expected to complete its 2007-08 budget, which forced the Town Council to accept spending reductions on Monday.
Previously, the council approved a $1.5 million for the last fiscal year, but because Haymarket businesses are not making as much money as expected, they are submitting fewer tax dollars.
A total of $194,867 less, according to Haymarket Chief Financial Officer James Naradzay.
“Our businesses took a hit,” said Naradzay as he discussed the finer points of the revised budget outside Town Hall. The town wanted $275,000 in tax receipts from local businesses, but after some number crunching, Naradzay figured that the town would take in less than half of that: about $130,000.
“For years, we were counting on Bloom and it just [didn’t] develop fast enough,” he said, referring to the main grocery store and shopping center in town.
So Naradzay and Town Manager Gene Swearingen recommended the following spending reductions, which the council unanimously approved:
Operating expenditures such as overtime pay, fuel and paper, by $77,827
Street Scape funding to make the town more pedestrian-friendly, by $22,865
Improvements to the Harrover property on the east end of town, by $30,419
Extra funding for the “rainy-day” or reserve fund, by $50,664.
That amounted to $181,675 in reductions, which meant the town still needed to come up with $13,867 to wipe out the deficit.
Naradzay then recommended the town withdraw that money from the more than $170,000 it has saved in its general fund bank account.
The council approved.
For the time being, the town is expected to cover about $16,000 in flood repair costs to Town Hall before the property is sold to commercial developer Gerry Kennedy. A settlement date has been set for late July.
Town officials are hoping the state will reimburse the town under one of its programs, which is likely though not certain, according to Naradzay.
He said the $13,867 withdrawal from the bank has “minimum risk” because of the likelihood of the town being reimbursed for the flood costs.
If the $2.3 million deal goes through with Kennedy, then Kennedy plans to turn the Town Center property into a shopping center featuring up to 16 small businesses. The town may then temporarily hold council meetings at the Haymarket Museum while the staff operates out of the police department.
All of that would go on while the Harrover property is redeveloped to host a new town hall. Eventually, the council and staff would move into that.
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