Saint John has received a clean audit for the 2017 fiscal year and ended with a $618,000 surplus.
It’s a small number compared to the city’s overall budget of more than $200 million, but finance committee chair David Merrithew says it wouldn’t be possible without the hard work of city staff.
The city’s net debt is also down slightly but is still over $241 million — that’s 26 times higher than Fredericton.
Merrithew says it’s a stark number and explains how he believes the city got to this point.
“We didn’t save our monies before we started a project, we borrowed for it, and Fredericton put it aside,” says Merrithew.
“They have policies, and now we do as well, that says you should have reserve. We do now, we didn’t for years.”
Merrithew says council needs to think twice when it wants to spend money because it’ll take quite some time to pay down the debt.
The city is projecting a $1.29-million surplus this year, mainly due to extra tax revenue from the Canaport LNG property.
That figure includes $3.4 million the city received from the province to help address its structural deficit. We asked Merrithew if the province will want that surplus returned to them.
“We can have a surplus of, I believe it’s about one percent, so in that case, rough numbers, about $1.5 million or $1.6 million,” he says. “If it was a surplus of three percent, yes, they’d claw some back,”
Merrithew says it’s still too early to accurately forecast year-end results and a lot can change between now and then.
