On paper, the city of Commerce had a great year financially, taking in $1.8 million more in cash than it spent.
In reality, it was still a good year — but not that spectacular, Finance Director Steve McKown told the city council.
It’s all a matter of how you look at it. McKown noted that the city took in $687,500 more in SPLOST (special purpose local option sales tax) revenue than it spent. Those funds are dedicated to specific areas and the city used the past fiscal year to accumulate the money toward some future project.
Additionally, Jackson County reimbursed the city $302,000 that the city spent the prior year, inflating the 2007-08 revenue by that amount. Another $112,000 came from “confiscated assets,” mainly drug money seized off Interstate 85 that can only be used to support the police department in upcoming budgets. And, there was a $60,000 payment from the Jackson County Board of Commissioners toward the expansion of the Commerce Public Library.
“The actual revenues from operations are more representative of the year we had,” McKown remarked.
That figure was $653,800 in revenue over expenditures.
“If you minus out the reserves, it’s about a half million dollars,” McKown summarized. “That sounds like a lot of money, but on a $32 million budget, it’s not.”
