HUMBOLDT — An audit of the city’s 2018 finances shows that it ended the year with a surplus.
As of Dec. 31, 2018, the city had almost $15.8 million in revenues and around $13.9 million in expense. With the addition of around $534,000 in federal and provincial grants, the city ended the year with a $2.5 million surplus.
That does not mean the city has an extra $2.5 million to spend. Some of that is non-cash items like amortization, while some of the money would still be pegged to projects that were supposed to start in 2018 but were delayed.
Joe Day, Humboldt’s city manager, said the city’s best estimate is that it has an extra $480,000 it can spend.
“We’re not asking council what we want to do with it at this point of time because right now it sits on the financial statements as an unallocated surplus,” he told council at their meeting on Aug. 26.
Day said city staff would like to report on what kinds of reserves it has and what their status is before council commits the money somewhere. In Melfort, half of their extra dollars goes into a special capital fund, while the rest goes into a facilities maintenance fund.
Rob Muench, Humboldt’s mayor, was pleased with the news.
“It’s nice to see at the end of the year that we spent less than we thought we were going to and we have money left over,” he said.
The audit was conducted by MNP.
