Gettysburg Finance Director Nicolette James said the Borough is expected to have a revenue loss in 2020 of over $1 million.
James said she had conducted an analysis of revenue streams and cash flows and their impact on the borough’s reserve fund balance.
“Right now, what we need to focus on is cash.” We need to “assess the ability of revenue streams to meet ongoing expenses. We need to be nimble, to assess the situation daily,” said James.
James estimated a 10 to 50 percent reduction in revenues across the borough’s different revenue sources. “April was pretty much zero revenue,” said James.
James said it was helpful that revenues had been up in the first part of the year before the virus hit and the reserve fund balance was healthy at that time. “We had a $1.7 million fund balance in May that is being used to pay the bills,” said James.
James said real estate and income taxes were expected to remain steady in 2020 but will be received later because of delayed due dates, but there would be significantly less revenue from hotels and admissions taxes, fines, and parking.
James’ predictions indicated there would only be about $654,000 in the reserve fund balance by December, which would only be enough revenue for one or two months in 2021.
Our projected revenue is not sufficient to carry us through April 2021,” said Borough Manager Charles Gable. “Looking forward, we have to make some difficult decisions.”
Gable said there was little the borough could do to increase revenue. “If the council were to do nothing the borough will find itself in a situation where it’s going into 2021 at a significant disadvantage,” said Gable.
“To get out of this we need teamwork. Recovery from COVID-19 will require shared sacrifices and cooperation from everyone, not just from council but from the public at large as well,” said Gable.
James said a possibility was for the borough to take a Tax Receipt Anticipatory Note (TRAN). later in the year. James said this was a “a short term solution” in which the borough would “borrow money to keep the lights on.”
The borough said all part time borough workers have been laid off as of April 30.
James said the Federal government had made no COVID-19 loans or other funds available for small towns such as Gettysburg.
The board planned to discussed finance issues at an executive session after the meeting.
Charles (Chuck) Stangor is Gettysburg Connection's Owner, Publisher, and Editor in Chief. I would like to hear from you. Please contact me at cstangor@gettysburgconnection.org.