MELFORT — The City of Melfort spent – and raised – more money than it expected it would.
MNP presented Melfort council with their audit of the city’s 2017 financials at a special meeting June 27. Rick Lang, Melfort’s mayor, said the accounting firm brought up no major concerns.
“That’s what we expected and that’s what we got,” he said. “I would say that’s a credit to the staff and the job that they do.”
In the budget, the city expected to spend $10.1 million. It ended up spending $12.2 million. The city expected to raise $12.3 million but ended up raising $13.7 million due to receiving more government grants than predicted.
Lang said he wasn’t too concerned that expenses were around $2 million more than budgeted.
“You will find quite often the numbers are high because the budget is typically built on realistic numbers from a cautious perspective,” he said, adding that when revenues are higher than expected, so are expenses. “As long as we’re running surpluses, we don’t get too concerned.”
The mayor said he’s been told the city’s surplus, on a cash basis is around $90,000. Half of that will go into a special capital fund, while the rest will go into a facilities maintenance fund.
Lang said it’s rare to see the city go into a deficit at the end of a fiscal year.
“When we run into a surplus situation like we are this year, we don’t have any major concerns with it,” he said.
“It shows that everything’s being run quite well.”
