Greenville is facing historically low-income reports across almost every city department.
Steve Osso, the city’s external financial consultant, brought some troubling numbers to the council’s attention at Tuesday’s regular council meeting when he said, “If you look at the first page you can see we’re down $241,000 from the prior year. Right now we’re at $1,792,000 in the general fund, and that’s down below seven out of the previous nine years.
“Sales tax was up in January, but in February it was down $28,700, remember before we get that money the SRS payment is taken out of it, they’re getting $181,000, and by the end of the year we will have given them two million of our money that won’t be going into the general fund.”
Osso went on to say gaming was down $11,000 in January, “If you look at the average, we’re behind seven out of eight years on gaming.
“This month we’ve read about 7,440 meters which is pretty good considering that the department is always short about three or four people, we’re at a $430,000 average for the month on billing but for collections, we’re at $156,000, which is down from January,” Osso said. “When we get all the meters in, get them reinstalled and all the people working we’ll be doing good.”
Osso continued his report, and from department to department it was all down from the previous month, or year.
With one exception, the Police Department broke even for the first four months of this year.
Garbage fee collection was the worst it’s been in 10 years Osso said.
Ward Five Councilman Bill Brozovich asked why the city is billing $40,000 a month and only collecting $11,000.
“Some of these bills are 45 or more days out before we get a chance to read the meters,” Osso said.
“We’re billing more than we’ve billed, but collecting less than we’ve ever collected,” Brozovich said. “Something has got to be done about this.”
Osso said, “A lot of the meters aren’t being read because of construction projects preventing it, or some of the older meters not working, you have people on payment plans who may have dripping faucets, so they're not paying all of their bill either.”
