Summerton expects budget to stay above $1M

By ROBERT BAKER
Item Staff Writer
bbaker@theitem.com

SUMMERTON — Summerton officials expect the town to generate $1,079,420 in revenue in the 2009-10 fiscal year, they said during a budget workshop Tuesday.

"This was our first budget session," said Town Administrator Bruce Behrens. "We just basically kind of looked at what the town could expect to bring in next year."

Behrens said while council examined expenditures for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins July 1, it did not qualify them with a number. He said that council, rather, would focus on bringing the expenditures in line with the projected revenue.

"Of course, our revenue is down from what we expected last year," Behrens said, referencing last year's $1,491,122 budget.

He said state cuts in aid to local communities were the reason for the town's lowered expectations.

"Another thing right now is that we don't know what our personal property tax is going to be," Behrens said. "For example, we've collected $30,000 this year so far, but we only budgeted for about $18,000. My problem is knowing what to use for a figure next year."

Behrens said the town was also interested in finding out how the closing of Michigan-based plant Federal-Mogul Corp., which opened in Summerton in 1974, would affect those figures.

"We're going to a meeting (Thursday) to meet with (Clarendon) County Auditor Patricia Pringle," Behrens said. "We should know more then."

Behrens said that he remains hopeful, mostly because the town is currently experiencing a $104,000 surplus, having collected about $1,033,000 in revenue and only doling out about $928,000 in expenditures.

"We don't know if we'll carry that over because we still have some time left in this year (the fiscal year ends June 30)," Behrens said. "Whatever we have June 30 will be a carry-over number; it would become an unencumbered fund balance. That's money that's available to spend, working kind of like a savings account."

Behrens said that the more money the town has going into 2009-10, the better off it will be if the General Assembly makes any more cuts.

"Again, we won't know until much later," he said.

Council will meet again at 6 p.m. May 14 to look at the budget. Behrens said he did not know if it would pass first reading then.

"They could do first reading at that time and we will have a balanced budget then," he said. "They have not indicated that they will have first reading then, but they could."

The budget must pass two readings and a public hearing by June 30.

Behrens said that the Summerton Police Department is involved in the biggest parts of the budgets.

"Much of our revenues come from police fines," he said. "And our biggest expenditures are police salaries, which run about $280,000."

He said that he also knows that next year's budget won't include any cost-of-living or merit raises.

"Our object here is to keep all of our jobs and keep our city services," Behrens said.



Contact Staff Writer Robert Baker at bbaker@theitem.com or (803) 435-8511.