Video: Tupelo Ends Year With Budget Surplus

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PRESS RELEASE

Mayor Jason Shelton and Chief Financial Officer Kim Hanna have released the 2015-16 budget report, which shows a $2.3 million general fund surplus to transfer to the capital budget. This means about $5.6 million in budget surplus over three years through what Mayor Shelton calls “a culture of savings.”

The transfer results as part of a policy adopted by the Tupelo City Council, which was proposed by the Shelton Administration to move excess revenue each year into a capital projects budget.

This approach allows us to protect our reserve fund for the City of Tupelo and also allows us to pay as we go on our capital projects plan,” the mayor said. “These are major expenditures to the infrastructure, quality of life and neighborhood revitalizations projects that are so crucial to the City of Tupelo.”

That means construction of splash pads in city parks or neighborhood drainage projects or equipment purchases, like a new fire truck, won’t send city officials scrambling to pay for big ticket items.

By taking this approach, we are able to pay as we go and fund these projects without increasing taxes; without utilizing our reserve fund; and without increasing the debt of the City of Tupelo,” Shelton said.

In the past, before implementing the culture of savings and pay as you go practices, big ticket items meant using reserve or Rainy Day Funds to take out new bond debt or searching for another way to pay, he explained.

The culture of savings developed through working with what the Mayor many times has labeled “the best budgeting and accounting team in the state,” led by CFO Hanna, who explained that during each year’s budget process for planning purposes, no savings are expected and every expectation is that the city departments will spend every penny budgeted.

But during the year, said Hanna, city departments work closely with her office to create that culture of savings.

We were mindful as we ran our departments to not cut services; to give citizens everything they expected,” she said. “But this best practice of spending only what you need; of spending it wisely and knowing it will be transferred to the capital fund to buy equipment and improve infrastructure, has changed the mindsets of the departments.”

Said Shelton, “The new policy has allowed us to fully fund our capital plan through 2018 without new debt or the utilization of our reserve fund.”

Categories: Local News

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