DAPHNE, Ala.—The city’s revenue has exceeded projected estimates since the city council adopted the budget for the 2011 fiscal year, but the city is also rapidly reaching the monetary amount to be left in the reserves as a safety precaution.

Council member Ron Scott presided over the finance committee meeting for March and he shared some promising information about revenue for February and the 2011 fiscal year so far.

“Sales tax for the month [of February] was approximately $100,000 above budget. For the year we are over $300,000 ahead of budget. The hotels continue to do better. We are meeting month-to-month figures,” Scott said.

He also said that the revenue trend looks good, but recent worldwide events, which have affected the economy, were not included in the most recent numbers received.

“The trend is good, which this was the first four months of the fiscal year. The graph looks good, but that is before we had the Egyptian revolution, the Libyan situation and the Japanese earthquake, so we live in a fragile world and we can be affected by a lot of stuff. Hopefully the economy will continue to improve,” Scott said. 

The treasurer reported that there were $23,877,136 in the city’s accounts.  

Sales and use tax collected for January 2011 was $817,230. The projected sales and use tax to be collected in January was estimated to be $714,825, which is $102,405 over budget. The collections are $343,860 over budget for the fiscal year. The lodging tax collected in January totaled $46,006.

The increased revenue is good news for the city, but some of the residents who attended Monday’s council meeting were not pleased with the excess.

Dr. Joe Gilecky told the council since there was extra money the sales tax should be lowered.

“I wasn’t going to speak, but then the financial report said that he had $100,000 excess in collected sales tax for last month and he said he over $300,000 in excess this far. I would like to ask you to think about lowering the sales tax then if you are getting more than you need you don’t need to just spend it on stuff. It would just be better to see that you are getting more than you need and go ahead and reduce the taxes,” Gilecky said.

Kevin Spriggs, owner of the Eastern Shore Motel, applauded the council for being able to complete road projects and build City Hall without borrowing money, but he thinks the city should focus its priorities.

“I think it is very important for people that spoke in favor of this project to pay attention to city priorities. For example, this is a very nice City Hall, but for the entire cost of this City Hall, the entire loop inside of Lake Forest and all of the major roads could have been paved with curb and gutter and re-landscaped,” Spriggs said.

Since the city council approved the appropriation of funds for the Lake Forest and TimberCreek road projects, and a proposed purchase of the new police vehicles would diminish the reserve fund to close to $8.2 million, Council President Cathy Barnette said she is wary since the suggested account balance is $8 million.

“It looks like with the road appropriation that we made tonight it will take us down to $8.4 million for our general fund balance, taking $200,000 from that takes us down to $8.2. Our target reserve is $7.5-8 million, so we are starting to get very close to our bottom level,” Barnette said.