CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Corpus Christi City Manager Peter Zanoni updated city council members Tuesday on how the city is doing financially during the COVID-19 pandemic and it turns out revenues are up, and expenses are down.
The city adopted a budget for the 2020-2021 fiscal year of a billion dollars.
Zanoni broke down the latest report starting with the general fund which has one of the biggest slices of the pie with $264.2 million.
"Overall, revenues for the first quarter were $10.5 million better," said Zanoni.
The first quarter is the combined months of October, November, and December. Local sales tax revenue was $1.5 million over the expected budget.
"In fact, when you look at the actuals and compare them to a year ago, we actually did better in the months of October and December than the prior year actuals," said Zanoni.
That means the city collected more sales tax this past fall than they did during the same time a year ago when we didn't have the pandemic.
The biggest addition of $9.5 million came with a category called franchise fees and other taxes. That reflects money the city got when they annexed an area of San Patricio and received money sooner than anticipated from a large industrial property.
There was also less spending in the general fund of just over $13 million.
"It's about 18-percent savings which is better than a year ago when we had almost 22-percent, so you can see we are spending more than we did a year ago which is good because it shows we are providing services to the community," said Zanoni.
The water fund brought in about $5 million more, a reflection of customers using more water due to folks who were home more often because of the pandemic.
Wastewater was right on budget and health care costs were lower than expected.
The city did see a negative impact in the budget due to COVID-19 in areas of public safety, municipal court revenue and recreation revenue. The hotel occupancy tax was also down by about $300,000.
"And we think if you look at the COVID-19 numbers, it's a reflection of that the numbers increased in November and December and had fewer people stay in hotels and travel overall," said Zanoni.
Greg Smith called it one of the best budget reports he's seen during his time on council.
"Here we are in the midst of a pandemic, I can't tell you how grateful I am to the leadership and all 3,400 city employees who made this possible," said Smith.
City leaders also heard that 17 out of the 25 budgeted initiatives are on schedule.
That includes items like hiring five additional police officers and funding 25 cadets for the fire academy, as well as replacing three medic units.
A second quarter report is expected in May. Here's a link to the city's first quarter report.
For the latest updates on coronavirus in the Coastal Bend, click here.
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