Mayor Mary Foster, working with members of the council and city staff, has done a first rate job of steering our city through the troubled financial waters of the last four years. Taxes are stable, costs are down, our rainy day fund is bigger than NYS municipal law requires, new businesses are moving in and established businesses are expanding. The NYS Comptroller has rated us highly on fiscal health.
The total government fund balance on December 31st, 2012 was $27 million with a general fund savings balance of $7.2 million (pages 17 and 18 of the audited financial statements). The general fund savings balance was $13.1 million on 31 December 2007 (page 18 of the 2007 audited financial statements). The General Fund decreased $1.520 million in 2012 (page 68 of the audited financial statements) which was a little better than the budgeted decrease of $1.551 million. The cumulative decrease over 5 years was $5.9 million.
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So, what affected the general fund savings balance from 2008 through 2012? Pension bills came to $4.1 million. The decrease in mortgage tax revenues was $1.8 million. Legal bills in the Deskovic case an inherited problem that has now been resolved, came to $500,000. Not exactly top secret stuff. But that was then, and this is now.
· The general fund savings balance is expected to increase $1 million in 2013.
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· Mortgage tax revenues have started to rebound with the economic recovery and resulting increases in home sales.
· Other revenues have also been slowly increasing and we have been cutting spending to close the gap.
· Pension bills are leveling off
· The Deskovic case has been settled.
There’s some misinformation going around about our Moody’s credit rating. Here is the history, right from the bond offering documents:
On Sept. 21, 2007, when the GOP was still responsible for our city, Peekskill issued bonds which were rated A2. Moody's then reviewed the City's 2007 financials and revised the bond rating up to A1. This event was noted in the 2007 audited financial statements. On August 10, 2010 the City issued bonds and the bond rating was revised up again to AA2, which is a jump of two rating categories. The rating on the bonds issued on Dec. 2, 2011 was still AA. In May 2013 the rating was adjusted to AA3, which is still better than the A1 rating in 2007, when last the Republicans, led by John Testa, were in charge.
Maybe it’s not fair to compare Mayor Mary Foster, a certified public accountant with a highly successful 30 year career at a major audit and accounting firm, and Frank Catalina, a self-described “country lawyer”. But really, who do you want working on our city’s budget?
