The city of North Battleford has released its latest financial update for October and things are looking better than expected.
In the report from director of finance Steve Brown, the city is on track for a overall surplus of $2,202,539 by Dec. 31.
“Numbers are still in line,” said Brown, “in fact we are better than anticipated.”
He cited a number of improvements in their operations this year such as moving to a base tax for 2020 for water and sewer and through lower contractor expenses for managing the water treatment plants by going with an outside manager for the entire year.
As well, a number of savings have been found in different department and they are seeing better financial controls. As a result the financial picture is on track, even with the disruption and loss of revenue due to COVID-19 .
According to Brown’s memo to council dated Dec. 14, in the General Government category, the city was looking at a surplus of $1,209,640 as of Dec. 31. The city reported overall tax revenue was better than budget by $447, 335 and outside unconditional grants better than budget by $855,254 thanks to federal restart money from the federal government.
As well, wages, travel and other expenditures were trending down by $200,000, with travel under budget due to COVID-19.
In other categories, fire and protective services was seeing a $100,000 surplus, Leisure Services $200,000, operations $300,000 and utility $150,000.
