Danville’s chief financial officer, Michael Adkins, will present the city’s general fund financials to the city council at its meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday. The city has seen an increase in both revenue and expenditures over the previous year, according to a summary of the report in the meeting’s agenda packet.
The city’s fiscal year runs from June 2024 to June 2025.
“After completing the first half of the new fiscal year, revenues are tracking well with budget and are ahead of the previous year,” the summary says.
General fund revenues were nearly $70.9 million, which represents 43% of the year’s budget as of the end of December. Last year at this time, the general fund had brought in just over $66 million in revenue, or 44% of the budget.
Where’s the additional money coming from?
This increase is primarily attributable to growth in local taxes, which totaled over $19.7 million as of Dec. 31 and exceeded the previous year’s local taxes collected by $1.4 million.
Over half of this increase is related to sales tax payments, the summary says, with the remaining increase “found in other sources of local taxes.”
Sales taxes and meals taxes collected through December totaled about $7 million and about $6.3 million respectively. Business licenses at the end of December amounted to almost $1.1 million, and lodging taxes brought in almost $1.8 million. Each of these figures is an increase from the previous year.
Danville has also seen about $2.4 million brought in from the Caesars Virginia casino resort as part of the local supplement arranged in the development agreement between the city and Caesars.
The yearly minimum for this supplement is $8.7 million, which means that 27.45% has been realized as of Dec. 31. This is separate from the gaming tax revenue that the city receives from the casino, which is expected to be $25 million or more during this fiscal year.
The city’s expenditures through the end of 2024 totaled just over $85 million, or 50% of the budget.
This is an almost $18 million increase over this time period in the previous fiscal year, largely attributed to departmental spending.
What kind of ‘departmental spending’?
“The increase in departmental spending is primarily attributed to an increase in salaries and benefits over the prior year, along with debt service for the police headquarters,” the summary says.
There has also been a $11.5 million increase in transfers to Danville Public Schools “primarily to cash advances made for capital-related grants,” it says.
There is about a $14.3 million difference between the city’s expenditures and revenue.
“This is typical for the start of the fiscal year in the general fund, due to the timing of revenue recognition not being matched to expenditures,” the summary says. “At this point, the general fund is performing well compared to the current budget.”
