With budget time around the corner, the mayor and City Council may be on different wavelengths.
City Council's finance committee was briefed recently on the preliminary 2009 city audit results.
The audit had no serious findings that might jeopardize access to grant funding, but it raised several questions.
Work on each year's audit begins in late December, and the finished product must be approved by council and in the hands of state and federal officials by Sept. 30.
Council members at the briefing left pleased and concerned.
There were no negative findings, and the "cushion" the city had available at the end of 2009 for this year has again turned out to be significantly higher than what the administration projected in its budget proposal.
That is a good thing, according to the administration.
Two of the council members agree, to a point.
Council Vice President Bill Hall suggests the difference in the fund balance projected by the administration for this year and the audit's findings of a much bigger than projected balance raise a red flag in his mind.
Having a larger fund balance is good, particularly when the amount is almost enough "to pay two months of the City's bills or about 75 percent of what auditors recommend a municipality have on hand for emergencies and hard times.
Hall and others on council want to see the fund balance grow, but he and Councilman Jonathan Williamson expressed concern.
The administration for the past two years has submitted budget proposals the rely on the fund balance to balance the books.
There was deficit spending in both the 2009 and 2010 budgets, and Hall said "two years running" of deficit-spending budgets is enough.
"In 2008 it was off by nearly $1.2 million," he said. "In 2009 it (was) off by almost $2 million."
The extra money was good, but he suggests the administration should do a better job of projecting expenses and income.
"We have to find a way to get estimates closer to reality," he said.
He and Councilman Jonathan Williamson both told the Sun-Gazette after last week's audit briefing they want a 2011 budget with no deficit spending.
"Unfortunately," Williamson suggested, the administration may not be listening, based on its last two budget proposals.
He hopes the 2011 budget proposal is different, but based on Mayor Gabriel J. Campana's reaction to the briefing, the big issue is not deficit spending.
His response noted how his administration is "encouraged by the results of the audit" because they show "Williamsport is in a much better financial situation than most cities in the Commonwealth."
"It shows our administration is managing the city well," Campana said. "We cut expenses and raised revenue."
Some on council suggested the real credit for the raised revenues were building permit fees paid by the colleges and Susquehanna Health for large-scale improvements on their respective campuses.
Campana gave himself and his team the credit.
"Our 25-page financial plan is updated constantly and we continue to monitor expenses daily," he added. "When an anticipated fund balance of $1.3 million actually becomes over $2 million in the black, it is a great thing."
He made no reference to deficit spending or the fact that the $1.3 million was reduced by deficit spending, just as the $2 million found by the 2009 audit will be depleted to between $700,000 and $800,000 by late December.
The other good news in the audit was that $8.2 million of the $14.2 million lost from the city's pension fund investments during the financial meltdown had been recovered as of December 2009 and that the city's projected expenses last year were 3.3 percent less than the administration projected.
