Another question I get asked often about is the city’s budget.   While we are almost a $9,000,000 annual budget, most of that is related to the incomes and expenses associated with our different “profit centers” or “Enterprise Funds” as they are called within the government functions.   Basically, we attempt to make each enterprise fund pay for itself.    In other words, we want the water fees to be enough to cover the costs in the water department.

But some expenses do not have income associated with them.   For example, we pay the sheriff’s department almost $600,000 per year.   But the fines collected go to the county, so we have no associated revenue’s with that expense.  So what pays for items such as that?  Well, those are paid out of the general fund.  The general fund gets its revenues from any profits from the enterprise funds (over and above the costs), as well as property taxes and Local option sales taxes (and some other smaller taxes), and Franchise fees, and insurance premiums, and some other things.

SO….  Here is a breakdown…

REVENUE:

The city of Hawkinsville generates revenues multiple ways:
The Net profit from the services that we offer (ex, Water, Gas, Trash Pickup, etc) is slightly over $500,000 (most of this is generated from our ability to sell Natural gas.  We receive almost another half million from Property taxes.   Those two income sources combined amounts to almost half of the net revenue of the City.    As the chart above indicates, we also get significant monies from LOST (Local Option Sales Taxes) 17%, Insurance Premium Taxes 13%, Franchise Fees 12%, and Vehicle Title Taxes 5%.  We also get another $120,000 from fees such as Business licenses, Fines, Hotel/Motel Taxes and our animal control expenses, among others).

EXPENSES:

You can see elsewhere in this booklet the expenses associated with the enterprise funds, but there are lots of other expenses as well.   Expenses associated with overall goals of the city such as public safety and streets and roads.

In order to control escalating costs as well as a better service delivery strategy for our citizens, we have consolidated many services with the County.    While we no longer have a city police department, we still pay the county Sheriff’s office almost $600,000 a year to provide a level of service to our citizens.   The city/county fire departments combined but we still pay almost $200K per year for fire/EMA (Emergency Management Agency) protection. We pay almost half a million a year on improving our city roads and of course, these roads produce no income.   (The county does reimburse half of Animal Control Expense) .  Of course there is overhead such as administration salaries, utilities, etc. that also have to be paid.

ENTERPRISE FUNDS:
The city has several accounts known as Enterprise funds.  These are the incomes and expenses associated with the services that we offer.   For example we have a water & sewage department, we have a sanitation department, a natural gas department, etc.   The items (water, trash pickup, gas, etc) are services/products that we sell.   As previously mentioned, the net profit from these services amounts to 23% ($532,195) of our net revenue that we use to pay for the non-revenue generating expenses such as police and fire protection.   Here is the breakdown on our Enterprise Funds:

There are many hard expenses that don’t bring in Revenue.  And Even when we get some State Grants like the CBDG (Community Block Development Grant), there are often some expenses associated with it that go above what the grant gives us.  Basically our goal each year is to set the fees associated with each service such that it pays all the expenses within that fund.  Gas is the one profit center does help us offset property taxes.

OTHER INFORMATION:

The  city’s budget year runs from July 1 to June 30 each year.   We begin planning the next fiscal year budget in January each year.   Our total budget (Enterprise funds and general) is $8.9 million.   The city budget is where we outline our priorities for the coming year.   How much money should we put in street cleaning?  How much in road maintenance?  How much in grass cutting?  How much on improving blight in our community?   We would love to fund everything, but we also have an obligation to keep your taxes as low as possible.    And actually, we have done a pretty good job at that.  The city’s mileage rate of 5.6% has not changed since 1987.   Sure, we’ve seen some years of increase revenue as the tax digest has increased, but we have not increased your mileage rate.   We have also stressed consolidation of services with the county whenever we feel that the consolidation will bring about lower costs and/or increased services to our citizens.  For example, we pay the county $18,000 a year to collect the city taxes on the same tax bills as the county taxes.   This means that you only have to write one check each year.  Mail it to the County and they cut us a check for our portion.    We have combined our Animal Control, Recreation Departments, Police/Sheriff, Fire, EMA, 911, Codes Enforcement, Tax Collection.

The budget is the most important legislation that we pass. And each and every year we pass a BALANCED BUDGET.  Something that the Federal government needs to learn to do.   Even as we are implementing this year’s budget, we are planning next years and auditing last years.

Berryhill, Shelly

I completed this simple booklet as a means to increase the transparency of your elected officials.   Everything that we do is open and available for you to peruse, but it is easy to get lost in the details.  This is just a brief, simple overview that hopefully enlightens you about your tax dollars and the fees that you pay for services.   These numbers are sometimes rounded and I make no guarantee that they are 100% accurate, but they are right to the best of my knowledge and ability.     Should you have any questions, concerns, or input, please feel free to contact me by any of the methods below:

Contact Me

P O Box 442
Hawkinsville, Ga. 31036
(478) 230-3538
shelly@hawkinsvillega.net     facebook: shellyberryhill
www.shellyberryhill.com       twitter:  @shellyb