So far, so good.

That’s the attitude the city finance department is using when looking at its first quarter budget. The city saw declining revenues for the first quarter of fiscal year 2009-10, but nothing more than expected, Finance Director Gayle Whittle said.

“Revenues are holding pretty steady with what we’ve budgeted,” she said. “But the quarter doesn’t show the total picture. For the most part, the department is under budget.”

The city earned about $8.6 million, or 22 percent of the yearly budget and spent about $7.4 million, or 20 percent of the yearly budget. The city earned $10 million in fiscal year 2008-09, only 20 percent of the yearly budget.

Interim City Manager Charlie Cassens said he was pleased to see the revenue and expenses were close to expected levels.

“It’s a tight game as far as revenues and expenses at this point,” he said. “We hope the rest of the year will track as closely as we are now.”

Whittle said revenue can be a clear sign of the path toward a sound budget.

“Expenses last year were about 18 percent but we had a much bigger budget,” Whittle said. “Then our revenues continued to decline and we weren’t budgeted for that. Once we saw that first quarter last year, that’s when we realized we’ve got to come back with fewer expenses and tighten up the budget.”

Revenues in 2008-09 came in at about $40 million, about $8 million shy of what was expected. The department spent about $39 million in 2008-09 after budgeting about $47 million. Problems arose, however, and the city also had transfers of subsidies to HURF, the Aquatic Center, the Wastewater System Project and others of $5 million that cut into the city’s general fund. Whittle said she does not expect the same problems this year.

“Our revenues are going to keep declining but we anticipated that and we’re prepared for that,” she said. “If everything turned out the way we’re still expecting, we would maintain the current fund balance.”

Whittle said further general analysis with the first quarter budget is difficult because several expenses are yearly and determining and the city typically sees revenue surges in the second and third quarter because of sales tax and property income tax filings.

The city is currently seeing an excess of revenues over expenditures of about $1.1 million but it expected to pay about $3.8 million at the end of the year in transfers.

“Right now, as long as we have enough cash coming in to keep making our necessary payments, we will be fine,” she said. “By the time we get to the end of the year, that (excess of revenues over expenditures) figure has to be at least over $3 mill in order for us to maintain our fund balance. We are on track for now.”

You can contact the reporter at nbruttell@havasunews.com.