Northport Village Council trustees unanimously approved its proposed 2024-25 general fund budget of $767,228 at its regular meeting on June 13. The balanced budget goes into effect in the new fiscal year that begins on July 1 and goes through June 30, 2025.
The budget contains a breakdown of different general fund expense highlights as well, such as the “operation expenses,” also known as expenditures, which was $342,181, and “salary expenses,” totaling $374,457. In addition to the expenses breakdown, the village included the totals for the 2024-25 net fund balances, current fund balances, and current cash in bank for each fund to give trustees an idea of what they have to work with in the year ahead.
“We’re trying to give you as much information as we possibly can,” said village manager Jim Dyer to the board at the June 13 village council meeting. “Then that total compensation is then broken down on each page by fund, the general fund, major streets and local street funds — those that have salaries allocated to them.”
Approximately $598,509.51 of general fund tax revenue from real personal property taxes, which is an increase of $15,726 from the previous estimate the village announced at its May meeting, makes up most of the revenue the village has received in the general fund budget, along with $60,000 from marijuana tax revenues. The marina fund revenue total is estimated at $827,900, and the water fund revenue is $237,350 — both revenue sources make up two of the village’s largest funds. The sewer debt retirement fund, separate from the general fund, has a total of $518,241 in revenues, while its operation expenses totaled $623,261.
Another action the board took was the approval of a budget amendment proposal for capital projects. The amendment includes the transfer of funds for three capital projects: playground equipment, striping of major and local streets and marina parking lot, and village office parking lot sealing and striping.
“We anticipated reserves in each of our funds with the idea that we would be adding certain projects on,” Dyer said. “We anticipate that throughout the course of the year… we’ll be adding projects on, we’re going to be using our reserves for.”
All projects aim to improve the community’s recreational facilities, maintain essential infrastructure, and ensure safety and accessibility. The total project cost for playground equipment is $89,000, with $49,260.72 from grant contributions, and the remaining costs covered by the marina and general funds. Project two, the striping of major local streets, marina and village parking lots, is estimated to cost $20,000. The smallest project, village office parking lot sealing and striping, costs $2,400. All allocated funds will be transferred to the capital fund to be specifically designated for each project, and helps maintain financial transparency to ensure that they are adequately funded.
“We knew those were three things that we were going to do and we approved those as budget amendments and we’re going to continue to do that throughout the year. So the public can track this is what we’ve done and this is how we’ve done it,” he said. “Other expenses like that would be transfers from funds into the capital fund so we can track those as not general fund expenses, but potentially depreciable assets… Most of the revenue that we expect to receive for example will be received before July, so we have it in place and we can plan on spending it over the course of the next year.”
One of the things that Dyer said he has recommended for the village to look at later this year as the fall audit approaches is how much reserves and cash on hand they have in each fund. Analyzing how much money should be in reserves and looking at if they are saving and holding enough funds to complete projects that need to be done are some of the priorities that the council plans to consider.
“We’ll be looking at that in a more comprehensive way with our auditors when we approach the audit this fall,” he said.
With the new fiscal year change in place from July 1 to June 30, 2025 instead of the previous date from March through February, Dyer said the village has a better estimate of what revenues and costs will look like as they complete the budget process.
“In this instance we chose a July fiscal year because it actually helps us… I think it fits well based upon the way that our budget plays out,” he said. “We’re trying to base our budget off of revenue that we have received rather than revenue that we’re anticipating. We already received the revenue and we’re going to spend it essentially in the next year instead of trying to anticipate what we’re actually receiving. Because this is the first year we’ve done this, I recommended and the council agreed that we would adopt a budget that had a high level of available cash and reserves.”
