City of Apopka officials were hoping to put away about $1 million to help build reserves for the city’s General Fund, but with revenue shortfall due to COVID-19, that money will likely go to help make up for the fewer dollars flowing into the city’s coffers.
City Administrator Edward Bass said that in May, the city received $515,000 less than budgeted from the state government’s revenue sharing and half-cent sales tax funds for March. There is a two-month lag for the payments from the state. The city did receive $584,305 for the March payment and that amounts to 47 percent fewer dollars, Bass said. The payments that Apopka has received from the state thus far in 2020 has generally hovered between $900,000 and $1 million per month.
Mayor Bryan Nelson said there are several ways city officials are working to make up what could be as much as a $2.5-million shortfall for the 2019-2020 fiscal year that ends on September 30, but the biggest chunk of change to help solve the shortage could come from the dollars that the city had hoped to pump into the General Fund reserve.
“The money we would have booked for reserves probably won’t go into reserves,” the mayor said. “We planned to put a million in there, but that’s not going to happen.”
Bass said the city is also looking to save $800,000 by putting capital projects on hold, and another $200,000 by not filling three open positions at City Hall. He said there are 15 open jobs in Apopka’s public safety departments, but that those spots are not frozen as are the three jobs in non-public safety positions.
“They’re trying to fill them,” Bass said about the public safety jobs. “Everybody’s having a hard time filling them because they academies are closed. Eventually, they’ll be filled.”
However, if the jobs go unfilled through the rest of the fiscal year, it would save the city $547,500.
Since the economy shut down in mid-March due to the coronavirus pandemic, Bass said the state government estimated that the payment for March would be about 25 percent less than budgeted.
Since the economy was shut down for all of April, it is expected to be worse financially for the city with Bass anticipating that Apopka will receive as much as 65 percent less money than budgeted.
The full story appears on page 3A of the Friday, June 5, edition of The Apopka Chief. Subscribe today!
