Rothesay Projects $250K Surplus From 2021

The Town of Rothesay is projecting a surplus of more than a quarter of a million dollars from last year.

Unaudited 2021 financial statements presented at Monday’s council meeting show a projected surplus of $257,000.

Revenue was more than $1.2 million higher than the nearly $18.9 million the town had budgeted for last year.

Doug MacDonald, the town’s treasurer, broke down where some of the extra revenue came from.

The town is getting an extra $1 million in transfers, mainly due to COVID-19 relief funding from the federal government.

In addition, the elimination of a provincial tax break known as the Permanent Assessment Gap Exemption, or P-gap, led to an extra $217,000 in unbudgeted revenue.

“As well, there’s some significant expense items that were quite a bit under budget, one, in particular, being for sand and salt,” said MacDonald.

Snow and ice removal was under budget by $130,000 due to a mild winter in early 2021, he said.

Staff had also budgeted $40,000 for flood expenditures which ended up not being needed.

“Also, I think it’s fair to say staff was very careful because of COVID uncertainty not to spend quite as much as they perhaps might have,” said MacDonald.

“For example, there was an employee that retired. We managed to get through without replacing them in 2021 just because we were really uncertain what may or may not happen.”

MacDonald said some of the additional revenue received has already been transferred into reserve funds.

According to the financial statements, the town transferred $950,000 into reserve which had not been budgeted for in 2021.

MacDonald said any final surplus will be used as additional revenue in the 2023 budget year.

Over on the utility side, town staff are anticipating a small surplus of nearly $19,000.

Documents show revenue was $31,000 higher than expected while expenses were over budget by $12,000.