On Wednesday, March 3, the Bristol Town Council met via Zoom with several items on their agenda, and one that loomed a bit larger than the others: the annual audit of the Town’s financial statements for the fiscal year ending in June 2020.

It was presented by CPA Mary Sahady.

“The town received what's referred to as an unmodified report,” she said, which means that there were no material weaknesses, no significant deficiencies and no non-compliance. “Back in the day, this would have been referred to as a clean report … unmodified is good.”

She then went over some of the financial highlights, including some capital information, as well as some debt information, and then lastly, the economic factors that may affect the next year and subsequent years, including the budget for the 2022 fiscal year, which will be hammered out over the next couple of weeks.

Capital outlay large, but offset

“The financial statements are broken down into three basic sections,” said Ms. Sahady. “The government-wide financial statements, the governmental fund financial statements and then your budgetary financial statements.” The government-wide financial statements add all of the Town’s assets less the net of accumulated depreciation, plus debt. The biggest numbers are assets, debt from bonding, and pension liability. According to Ms. Sahady, the government-wide financial statements revealed a decrease in the Town’s net position of $1,114,095, which was primarily due to an increase in pension liability. For business activity, however, the town showed an increase of $61,000.

For the Town’s general fund, including the capital project funds and special revenue funds, in 2020 the Town reported a combined ending fund balance of $16,000,987, which was decrease over the prior year by $5,000,666, again primarily as a result of capital outlay.

“I’m not sure that any of us really knew what was was going to happen, particularly when, in March of 2020 we were really just finishing up budgets in a lot of communities,” said Ms. Sahady, “and the next thing you know we were in this pandemic, so a lot of things didn’t really occur the way they were planned.”

Referencing the federal stimulus plan that was scheduled to be voted on in the days following this meeting, she said, “We’re hoping that in 2022 there some very unique aspects of governmental accounting, particularly with what is in front of the Senate right now in Washington … we may see some additional revenues that no one really anticipated when they were putting together the budgets.”

The upshot? Bristol finished the fiscal year ending in June of 2020 with a surplus of $3,074. It’s less than what was planned, but under the circumstances, town officials were pleased.

Revenues exceeded expectations

Additionally, the audit revealed that Bristol has a healthy net position in OPEB (Other Post-Employment Benefits, which are benefits — other than pensions — that governments provide to their retired employees, such as health care benefits and life insurance).

The audit also revealed that in fiscal year 2020, the Town’s actual revenues exceeded the budget by $462,000 with other revenue coming in at $139,000 and reduced expenditures in several areas, including community services and payroll taxes and benefits.

“So we just barely squeaked by in the black, but it’s better than the being in the red, given all that transpired this year,” said Town Councilor Mary Parella.

Town Treasurer Julie Goucher emphasized that what looks a bit like a “squeak” was less so, because the town transferred some of those funds to capital projects. “You're used to seeing a little bit more of net income at the end of the year and this year it was pretty balanced, but that is because of those planned transfers to capital projects, and those were things like the Prudence Ferry grant matching funds, the Tanyard Brook matching funds  — those were a couple of the big transfers that were done.”

Town Councilor Tony Texeira then noted that with an unassigned fund balance of $8 million, which is 16 percent of total general fund revenues, the town is in pretty decent shape. Ms. Sahady agreed, adding that number puts Bristol at just over the recommended threshold of 10 to 15 percent.

“If you look at your revenue budget as it stood on its own, and your expenditure budget on its own, you would have had a surplus of about $400,000,” said Ms. Sahady.

“A year ago I thought we were going to be in very bad shape with the pandemic and the way that it was kind of starting to accelerate,” said Town Councilor Aaron Ley. “And to see this right here, makes me feel really good going into this next budget year in terms of the way that things have been managed.”

Treasurer Goucher made another positive point about the upcoming budget process. “You will see in a couple of weeks, when we’re presenting the budget, this is the first year that we are not proposing a contribution to the open trust, and in fact we’re proposing a distribution from the trust to help offset some of the retiree health care costs,” she said. “That's just huge. I’m not sure you know how many plans in the state are able to do that at this  point … actually healthy enough to be able to start helping out the operating budget, which is great, and it’s a fun place to be.”

More library staffing

Reached after the meeting, Town Administrator Steven Contente was satisfied with the Town’s position just days before he submits the next budget to the Town Council. “We’re doing well,” he said. “The residual was small, but that was due to a mid-year appropriation to fund some things without going to a bond, like finishing the match for the Prudence Island dock.”

“Every budget includes a wish list with different funding sources, some taxes, bonds, grants. And sometimes they don’t get done. But we have a healthy fund balance.”

Mr. Contente plans to deliver his budget recommendations to the council this Friday, March 12. They will hold their first workshop on Monday, March 15, going over the budget line by line, and will continue all week and into the following if necessary.

Among his recommendations will be an increase in allocation for staffing at Rogers Free Library, the result of a Feb. 26 workshop and the presentation of a staffing study that was requested during fiscal 2021 budget negotiations.

The report, prepared by Nancy Kellner and presented by Ryan Brennan, the library’s new director, made the case that two additional full-time employees, an adult services librarian and a tech specialist, are warranted.

“If the library is telling us that is what’s required, I support that,” said Mr. Contente. “They do a great job, and they are looking to operate more efficiently.”