Wellington's key revenue sources are up and down

By JoAn Bjarko
North Forty News

Wellington Town Board heard good news and bad news from the town finance director when he gave his quarterly report on how revenues were lining up for the year.

On the down side, finance director Mike Cummins noted, are general sales taxes, motor vehicle ownership taxes and motor vehicle sales taxes. On an upward trend are the highway users (gas) tax and building permit collections. The latter, in fact, is really good news in light of recent years with very little building activity.

From January through March, Wellington collected $192,980 through building permits. Those permits included nine new homes, a commercial expansion at Advance Tank and numerous remodeling projects. The percentage increase from the first quarter of the previous year when permits brought in $66,258, Cummins noted, is 191 percent.

A more modest increase came in gas taxes, up 18.5 percent from 2009. Income to Wellington during the first quarter of 2010 was $41,567 compared with $35,083 the previous year.

Decreasing in the first quarter, general sales taxes brought in $134,367 compared with $146,204 during the same period in 2009. That's an 8.2 percent decline.

Property taxes on vehicles in Wellington brought in $11,147 the first quarter of this year compared with $12,863 last year, a 7.2 percent decline.

Sales taxes on new and used vehicle sales and leases declined 10.2 percent. Revenues the first quarter of this year are $45,260 compared with $50,398 the previous year.

Wellington has an $8.4 million budget to operate town government and make capital improvements, such as street repairs, in 2010. Revenue sources include the above taxes and permits, property taxes of about $683,000 for the general fund and a variety of utility and use fees.

Cummins noted in his quarterly report that the town has spent about 11 percent of its current budget and has brought in about 19 percent of anticipated revenue.