Hanceville amends city budget to reflect rising costs

HANCEVILLE — Surging fuel costs and other inflationary pressures have compelled city leaders at Hanceville to revisit the annual budget they approved at the start of the fiscal year last fall.

At its regular meeting this week, the Hanceville City Council approved an amended version of its fiscal year 2022 budget, updating the city’s anticipated revenues and expenses to reflect the unforeseen cost increases, while folding in additional sources of revenue that weren’t on the table when the original budget was approved in September of 2021.

With less than three months remaining in the current fiscal year, the revised budget now anticipates total expenses of $6,928,492.80, compared with revenues of $6,521,673.55. That represents a revenue shortfall of $406,819.25 — though the city’s available cash on hand, which stands just beneath $350,000, is not included in the revenue total.

Either way, the new budget anticipates that the city will spend slightly more money than it expects to take in by the time the current fiscal year ends on Sept. 30. However small, it’s a shortfall that municipal leaders didn’t foresee last fall, when the cost of fuel and other common materials, though rising, wasn’t nearly as expensive as it’s since become.

“Fuel has been the big killer for us,” said mayor Kenneth Nail on Friday. “For the first time ever, the city will end up spending more than $200,000 in a single year on fuel. In fact, we have a couple of dirt hauling projects that we’re going to go ahead and finish — but after that, we’re going to cut things off until the new fiscal year begins. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I’d say fuel, for us, is probably up by about $100,000 compared to last year.”

The city’s original budget for 2022 anticipated revenues of $5,932,099.50 and expenses of $5,495,712, leaving what leaders at the time believed would be a wide berth for absorbing unanticipated costs. Taking into account the city’s available cash, Hanceville will likely end the current fiscal year with an overall revenue-to-expense gap of approximately $70,000.