2024 10 15 City Council Packet 1

Machine-read OCR text; verify every number, name, and layout against the original page.

CITY OF ATHENS, TENNESSEE
Narrative on Financial Analysis
September, 2024

This narrative will discuss various aspects of the financial data presented to the city council for
the above-referenced month. July, and 2 or 3 subsequent months will be above the normal
percentages, primarily on the expenditure side because of several factors, as discussed below.

General Fund

Overall, we collected about $551,000 less in September this year, primarily because we the
state shared revenues and local sales tax did not get recorded until October 1. Property taxes

were up since the taxes were mailed out earlier this year As a percentage we collected 3.47%
less than the budgeted revenues for last year.

PLEASE NOTE: On the financial spreadsheet that accompanies this report, at the top you will
see General Fund revenues. | have only broken out major sources of revenue such as property
taxes and sales taxes. The “total revenues” amount includes smaller items that | did not show

in detail. A complete listing of all revenue accounts can be found on your computer-generated
report titled “Statement of Actual and Estimated Revenues”.

Expenditures are always going to show high in the early budget months, primarily due to the
retirement contribution being paid in July and the fleet management transfer.

Another factor that makes the percentage spent look high is the fact that we set up annual
purchase orders for known or recurring monthly expenses. For example, in the City Council
division we pay for the monthly taping of council meetings. To avoid having to prepare a

purchase order every month, we prepare one for the entire year and pay off of it monthly. This
total PO is included in the “expended & encumbered” percentage.

Expenditures and encumbrances for this year are $1,301,000 less than this time last year,

showing 34.93% this year. The variance is due to the $2,000,000 for paving that was
encumbered in July of last year and the transfer to debt service being done earlier this year.

Sanitation

Revenues and expenditures are comparable to the prior year.

Please let me know if | can provide additional information.

18