FAIRHOPE, Ala. — The City Council convened a special meeting Monday afternoon to discuss municipal financial issues.

The meeting was one in a series by the council with city staff this year to devote more time to issues facing the city than is available at council meetings, officials said when the meetings were proposed.

City Treasurer Nancy Wilson summarized the city’s finances at the meeting, referring at times to reports prepared by Financial Reporting Manager Rose Fogarty, who was also present.

“We do have some concerns on the revenue side,” Wilson said. “Expenses are pretty much on budget. We’ve tried to cut back in everything and make everyone think hard before making purchase requests. We think the managers are to be commended.”

Wilson pointed to possible revenue shortfalls from impact and subdivision fees as an area of concern.

“As you know, there’s not been as much subdivision development going on now,” Wilson said. “We could be down as much as $400,000 due to a slowdown in development.”

Much of the meeting focused on revenue issues caused by the uncertainty of ongoing property tax appeals.

Wilson presented a Jan. 10 letter from Baldwin County Revenue Commissioner Phil Nix to Kant about the issue, and also referred to a Feb. 15 phone call from Nix to the mayor regarding an update on the status of the appeals of property taxes in the area.

“In looking at figures for those who have appealed their property values and how it will affect the amount that is anticipated to be collected is as follows: Overall is approximately $1,115,000 total dollars in those parcels that have appealed,” Nix wrote. “If lowered by 50 percent we’re looking at $557,959 that would go to the city which would lower what we estimate collecting for the city which is approximately $4.4 million dollars.”

Kant said that in his Feb. 15 conversation with Nix, the amount the city would receive that had not been appealed was $1,232,776 and that the appealed amount had increased to $1,388,000.

“We were told we could get as much as $4.8 million,” Kant said during the meeting. “But we budgeted $3.9 million for this last year.”

Wilson said that the city had received $2.2 million in property tax revenues.

Adding the amount not appealed to the amount received plus half the current appealed amount would equal an anticipated revenue of $4,126,776.

The possible 50 percent reduction in revenue received from the appealed amount was a worst-case scenario and that reports were that taxes from 69 percent of the appeals were not being reduced at all, Wilson said Tuesday.

“So, our budget looks pretty good,” Council President Bob Gentle said at the meeting.

Wilson said financial reports for the four months ending Jan. 31, 2008, would be presented at the Feb. 25 council meeting.

“Everybody says we’re in bad shape,” Councilman Mike Ford said at the end of the meeting. “It sounds like you are doing a good job. Just keep it up.”