CLAYTON -- Before looking at its funds for next year's budget, Clayton is well on its way to ending this year in the black.
At the Jan. 17 town council work session, town manager Steve Biggs presented the town's budget performance on the 2011-2012 fiscal year to date, as well as on the status of property tax collections.
"On the expenditure side we feel pretty good," Biggs said, explaining that the town hasn't overspent its budget with half of the fiscal year left to go. "Overall, there's nothing that indicates a trend for the end of this year that is troubling."
Expenditures from the town's water and sewer fund, the electric fund and the general operating fund are all less than 50 percent half-way through the year, Biggs reported to the council.
With 50 percent or more of those general funds left over, the town should stay within its budget in those three departments come the end of the budget cycle on July 1.
However, Biggs was hesitant to say that the rest of the year will be as strong.
"In these times, not bad is good," Biggs said. "I'd love to say we'll be fat and happy at the end of this year: we're not gonna be fat and happy. But we're gonna be fed; we're not going hungry this year."
Revenue update
The town's sales tax collection, which is taken out of Johnston County sales tax revenue by the state and then redistributed to countywide municipalities, was at 46 percent of Clayton's sales tax revenue budget by November, 2011. That means that the town's budgeted state-shared sales tax revenue is already 46 percent of what it should be by the end of the fiscal year.
"According to news reports, spending was up in December as prior to last year, so maybe we'll do better than the budget," Biggs told the council. "But we're not counting that money before it's collected. We're safely within budget this year on sales tax."
As for property taxes which are collected between September and January, the town has already collected more by Jan. 17 of this year compared with the same date in 2010. Seventy-seven percent of its budgeted $7.83 million revenue from property taxes has already been collected.
Biggs said property taxes really begin to come in December and January. Even though they're due the first of September, they're not past due until Jan. 4 and 5.
"People really wait until the end of the year to pay their property taxes, because there's no incentive to pay them early," he said.
As of Jan. 17, there was only 33 percent of the property tax budget left to collect.
"So we're absolutely on pace to meet budget, because last year we exceeded our budget a little on property tax collection. We're just barely ahead of last year's pace, which makes us confident we'll be on course," he said.
New purchasing rules
The town has also reexamined its purchasing policy for equipment, supplies and project contracting, which Biggs and town Finance Director Robert McKie presented to the council last week.
The new policy emphasizes the town's intent to buy locally and contract locally when possible, and also further automates employee spending when part of their job includes regular purchasing for the town.
Revamping the whole policy was driven by technological changes in human resources and purchasing systems, Biggs said.
Not having been reevaluated in more than a decade, Biggs joked with the council that McKie had presented the policy as though it were a dissertation on local government spending.
"I'm really impressed with the simplicity of this document," said Clayton Mayor Pro-Tem Michael Grannis. "Yet at the same time, it's really all encompassing. That to me is the impressive piece."
Highlights of the new policy include updates to town purchasing procedures now that the finance department oversees purchases via the Internet. For purchases of $500 or less, a form of a credit card is utilized, and the purchase is sent into the computer system and approved by the finance department.
Biggs explained that the town will have daily and maximum purchases set on these "p-cards," which are distributed around to staff members who do routine purchasing of necessary town supplies and materials
"(The software) made the old purchase order system cumbersome and antiquated, so we upped the limit from $50 for a purchase order to $500," Biggs explained.
As for larger projects like road resurfacing and park construction, the policy iterates that all projects or purchases of equipment exceeding $90,000 must utilize a formal bid process which mirrors state law, and that the town may choose to do formal bidding for purchases between $50,000 and $90,000.
However, all projects over $10,000 require a competitive bid.
