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Village’s financial recovery plan approved

WELLSVILLE — Less than a year after having a financial recovery plan approved and then thrown out, the village of Wellsville has a new accepted plan to get out of fiscal emergency.

On Wednesday, the village’s Financial Planning and Supervision Commission approved a new financial recovery plan and five-year forecast that will look to get the village out of fiscal emergency — Wellsville received that distinction, for the third time, in November 2016.

The new plan, prepared by Mayor Nancy Murray, was approved Friday by village council during a special meeting and was forwarded shortly afterward to the commission for review.

“I’m just happy that we’re just able to move on, and just happy that we have a plan in place,” Murray said. “It was tough getting rid of the $300,000 deficit.”

The plan is the second one approved by the commission since its formation last year, and comes nearly 10 months after its originally-accepted recovery plan was disallowed due to uncertainties with some items, including the village’s traffic camera revenue with Blue Line Solutions, which has since been discontinued due to Blue Line terminating its contract earlier this year, along with other matters of overspending.

In the village’s plan/forecast, the village is forecasted to finish 2018 with deficit of more than $137,000, but will end with a positive balance of more than $105,000 in 2019, and $52,000 to work with by the end of 2022. These are done with the help of recovery plan items such as the sales of capital assets, changes to the income tax allocation for the capital projects fund, the village’s half-percent income tax levy and a sewage administration fee implemented last year.

Financial supervisor Tisha Turner said revenues and expenditures were “consistent,” except for a few items including the omission of a $10,000 Nature Works grant the village received this year and forecasted to appear only for this year, and a worker’s compensation rebate that had been received in past years, but not guaranteed to be awarded to the village in future years.

Initially also included as a recovery item was funds from a memorandum of understanding with businesses at the Wellsville Intermodal Facility, which is forecasted to bring in $47,000 in 2018, and $21,428.55, annually, starting in 2020. Turner, however said the item was removed because, although it went into the general fund, the MOU funds would only go toward police cruisers and road repairs.

“Based on the way I understand the memorandum of understanding, the money that comes from this is to go into road repairs and police cruisers,” Turner said.

If the village continued to operate without any of the recovery items listed, it would end 2022 with a deficit of more than $1.1 million, Turner added.

Commission chairman Quentin Potter expressed some concerns, particularly with the decreasing funds after 2019, but also noticed that the village used a “conservative” estimate and ultimately approved the plan.

With the plan’s approval, the village is also no longer under the 85 percent spending cap — which the commission placed the village under in February — and will be able to use its full appropriations that had been intended at the start of the year, based on what the village spent each month in 2017.

The cap was instituted in January, and took effect February, after the village was unable to come up with a replacement recovery plan two months earlier. It could only be lifted once the commission received and accepted a new plan.

For the month of August, the village was capped at $71,027.28 in spending and was able to finish with $8,428.88. For September, the village has been capped at $87,155.91 and, as of Sept. 20, has spent $53,486.08, leaving the village with $33,669.83 to work with the rest of October.

The new plan takes effect immediately.

The commission, meanwhile, will take a two-month hiatus, and reconvene at the end of the year to review its end-of-year statements. That meeting is scheduled 2 p.m. Dec. 18 at Village Hall on Main Street.

In other business:

— As for the monthly report, Turner reported the village’s monthly bank reconciliation, as of Aug. 31, was $869,465.48. The village had only one fund in deficit spending, that being the general fund with a negative $66,932.85. The village’s overtime spending has decreased by 41 percent from last year, Turner added, with the street and cemetery departments still with higher overtime due to work on the flood pumps earlier this month.

— Murray reported the deadline to place bids for the Wellsville Marina are Friday. Once council approves the best bid, it will petition to transfer funds from capital improvements to the general fund. Murray also reported the village is expected to receive funds from Buckeye Water District for an easement valued at $60,000; a check for $67,000 for the sale of the former SkyBank building, located next door to Village Hall, which will serve as the new offices for Lifeteam EMS; and a $17,600 check from Columbia Gas for opening and closing of streets for installation of a new gas line.

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