City of Geneva adopts lean $73 million budget

GENEVA – The Geneva City Council on Monday approved a $73.2 million budget that reflects flat sales revenues and rising costs.

This year’s budget represents a 0.5 percent increase from last year’s budget.

“Operating budgets were held as close to zero expenditure increases as possible, while implementing a rise in expenses for fuel, liability insurance, group health insurance and employee wage increases,” Geneva City Administrator Mary McKittrick said.

Fuel expenses were budgeted for a 10 percent increase, but she said those costs are anticipated to escalate even higher based on current market trends.

The city has continued a hiring freeze and volunteer furlough program in the face of budget constraints, along with taking some measures as not providing education reimbursement and deferring or scaling back on some capital items.

The city already has reduced staffing levels by an additional 3.5 full-time employees, including not replacing an employee who had retired, laying off two employees and reclassifying one employee from full time to part time.

This year’s general capital improvement program does include $3.5 million for construction of the third level of the city’s commuter parking deck.

The largest source of revenue for the city’s general fund is from local sales taxes. The budget projects sales tax receipts of $7 million for 2012-13 – $5 million for the general fund and $2 million for the infrastructure capital projects fund, representing 33 percent of the revenue in the general fund.

“The sales tax projection is conservative, as a result of the volatility of sales tax revenue in the current economic condition,” McKittrick said.