While City Hall still refuses to state how much was earned from metered parking over the last six weeks, it has reported nearly $400 million in earnings for January from other sources, 51% of which was paid to garbage contractors.
The Treasurer’s report for January 2017 states that the city earned $395,720,360 from various sources, including container fees and property rates. This represents a $194 million increase over the $201,639,469 collected during the same period last year.
While the $8,035,000 collected in container fees represents a new revenue source since that time the largest increase was recorded under the heading of sundries, which includes fees for compliance certificates and building approvals. In January 2016, this heading generated $12,975,037 a mere fraction of the $215,766,471 generated in January 2017.
In this month alone, this heading has generated nearly two-thirds l of the $323,311,100 it is projected to bring to the council for the year.
Market fees projected to generate a little more than $279 million for the year brought the council $26,190,648 while property rates generated $145,728,241 of the projected annual income of $1.7 billion.
Not reflected in the earnings is the 20% that the city is expected to be paid from the controversial metered parking project, which became active on January 23rd, 2017.
City Hall, in a press statement, said that it had received the 20% from its partner, Smart City Solutions, but when contacted refused to state how much was earned in the seven days of January the project operated.
Town Clerk Royston King, whose office released the statement, told Stabroek News that he would have to wait on the treasurer to provide him the information.
Meanwhile, the city has not recorded a deficit in the first month of the year as expenditure was pegged at $338,842,822. This is unusual for City Hall, which regularly records deficits no matter its income. For the first 6 months of last year, the council recorded a $400 million increase in revenue yet still managed to record a deficit in that period.
Expenditures in January were $105,225,772 for employment, $18,997,141 for employment overhead, $185,607,875 for operating expenses, $394,000 in other expenses and $823,300 in capital expenses.
As usual, there were no details on these expenses.
