Thursday March 28th, 2024 8:10AM

Gainesville City Manager feels good about city's financial position

GAINESVILLE – The economic gurus point in opposite directions, the social pundits can’t find common ground, and the politicos in Washington appear set against ever agreeing about anything, yet one subject touches everyone, and in the words of James Carvel, campaign strategist for Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential run, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Whether you fall in line with those who say that a dire recession is near, or glom onto predictions of continued record prosperity, or teeter somewhere in between, you can find support and data aplenty for your position, online, in published periodicals, or on TV and radio.

The bottom line, however, is this: no one really knows for sure what the economy will do in the short term.

And that fact-of-life can be a challenge for smaller government entities such as municipal governments, who often work with budgets in the “millions-of-dollars” range rather than “trillions-of-dollars” like the federal budget.  Smaller budgets innately have less room for error than massive budgets, so getting it right becomes more pressing.

The City of Gainesville is no exception.  The budget currently in place began to be considered about nine months before being adopted, a gestation that always hinges on the question, “Where will the economy head?”  

Following Thursday’s Gainesville City Council work session, City Manager Bryan Lackey was asked how the city’s FY2020 budget was faring.

Lackey immediately pointed at one element of the budget where control can be exercised: spending.  “Well, certainly, expenses are staying within budget.  Staff is doing a good job with that.”

“It is early in the fiscal year, one-quarter in, considering a lot of our revenue comes in towards the end of the year with tax bills - it’s hard to get a good feel for it right now – but the revenues so far, the first quarter, are matching right where we anticipate them to be,” said the man who took over daily city operations nearly four years ago.

Lackey explained that being conservative when budgeting is a policy he embraces.  “We have been looking at the future, knowing that a downturn is going to come, I don’t want to use the “R”-word (Recession), because everybody still has scars from the last one.”

He continued, “Downturns in the economy are inevitable, and we’ve gone, I think, the longest period of economic growth in the history since they have been keeping those records.  There is a downturn coming.  We hope it’ll be historically a normal downturn verses a recession. ”

“We know in the next couple of years things can’t keep going like they’ve been so we have been trying to budget for that, tightening up a little bit, slowing down on the growth of our budget.”

Lackey then leaned back ever so slightly in his chair and added, “So far everything is looking where it’s supposed to for this year, but we do know that within the next few years that’s (downturn) gonna come.”

Lackey said it is important to understand that economic numbers for the city being reported now are compared to numbers from a year ago when all-time highs were common.  To illustrate he said, “Our permitting numbers (e.g., new business, residential and commercial construction) and revenues are still really strong…off from the last couple of years, but those last couple of years were record years, so you can’t maintain a record year, year after year.”

Lackey credited the people of Gainesville and the leadership in place with across the county with the city’s strong economic position. 

“Even if other parts of the state start to see a little bit of a decline, I think Gainesville/Hall County is always going to be really strong just because of our geographic location in the state.”

Lackey smiled and said: “Everything is looking (like it’s) right where it needs to be so far.”

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