Richmond Hill city council members got good news at Tuesday’s city council meeting.
New water and sewer connection fees through May had surpassed $400,000, and that’s more than the city collected all of last year, city financial director Bob Whitmarsh told council.
In all, the city had 100 new water and sewer connections through the first six months of 2014, officials say.
“We’ve been monitoring this very closely, and that’s the best first half of the year we’ve had since 2006,” council member Johnny Murphy said.
There is a caveat, however. City officials don’t expect the pace to continue.
“We’ll taper off some in the second half of the year,” Murphy said. “But this will still be a good year, and a better year than we’ve had in a while.”
Whitmarsh, who shared results of Richmond Hill’s 2013 audit with council, gave the city’s finances an A. Despite a smaller tax digest, conservative budgeting left the city has a fund balance of more than $4 million, he said, which would allow it to operate for about six months.