Baldwin Mayor Jerry Neace left his seat and faced fellow city councilmen from the floor Monday night to deliver, what he says is, long overdue good news about Baldwin’s finances. “When you get an audit you get a one year snapshot and people get fixated on that snapshot,” Neace began. “You’ve got to look at the big picture and when you look at the big picture, we’re doing pretty good comparatively.”
The city’s audit came in earlier this month and showed revenue exceeded expenses by roughly $20,000 dollars meaning Baldwin’s financial house is now in order. That was not always the case.
Neace spent the last week crunching 10 years’ worth of the city’s financials to come up with a 13 page report full of spreadsheets and charts showing the ups and downs of Baldwin’s fortune. “In reviewing past audits, I will say that the city has come a long way,” he explained. “The city is in great financial health and is improving services to its citizens and customers each year.”
Indeed, just 6 years ago the City of Baldwin millage rate was a full mill higher and they had a negative fund balance of -$67,143. In 2014, the tax rate was down (7.25) and the city’s reserve fund now stands at $536,804.
Things are not perfect in Baldwin; their new billing software is acting up and slowing down collections. The ice storm in February cost them $4325.64 and 395 man-hours clearing the streets of broken tree limbs. That will mostly be reimbursed with State of Emergency funds. They also have to shell out an extra $800 this month to clean the air conditioning system.
It’s always something when you run a city, even a small one, but Neace says Baldwin is now in a good position to handle whatever comes up, “Some local city’s haven’t felt good about their finances and it’s created a gloom and doom effect. People don’t like high taxes or high expenses and I wanted to demonstrate that Baldwin had lowered taxes and expenses and when you look at a ten year picture instead of just a one year picture you can see just how significant the change has been.”
