CAFR
In
January, the Visalia city council received and reviewed the Comprehensive
Annual Financial Report (CAFR) for fiscal year July 1, 2016 to June 30,
2017. State law requires a complete set
of audited financial statements annually by the city. This report, which was almost 200 pages long,
gives the city council an opportunity to review the financial health of the
city, and is done by an outside auditor.
The report showed that sales tax revenues had increased by 4%, property
tax revenues had increased by 5%, and transient occupancy taxes had increased
by 12% over the prior year. Excluding
revenues from the sale of land, we ended that fiscal year with a $900,000.00
surplus! Adding that surplus to our
emergency reserves, along with interest earnings and some land transfer
revenues, brought the reserves ending balance up to $12.9 million dollars. The council then authorized the transfer from
unassigned funds of another $1.5 million dollars to increase the emergency
reserves balance to $14.4 million dollars.
Another way that I refer to our emergency reserves is our "rainy
day funds." The goal of the council
has been to build up those reserves to 25% of our general fund. The new balance achieves that 25% goal, and
is the highest that our city's emergency reserves have ever been historically. I note that, due to the great recession, the
emergency reserves reached a low point of $1.3 million dollars in 2012/13 and
this city council has rebuilt the reserves to what we have currently. Now that we have rebuilt the emergency
reserves, we can start using future surpluses to save up for other projects. Currently, we are enjoying a relatively
prosperous economy, but we are prepared for the time when such is not the
case. The general conclusion of the CAFR
report was that Visalia is in good financial condition overall. We always appreciate receiving this type of
good news.
ECONOMIC
STRENGTH
More
good news is that Area Development Magazine recently came out with its 2017
rankings related to metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) based upon performance
in prime work force, economic strength, year-over-year growth and five-year
growth. Overall, Visalia/Porterville's
MSA (Tulare County) ranked 64th out of 394 MSAs across the country,
which was a vast improvement over our 2016 ranking. This ranking was the highest in the Central Valley
region. By comparison, Fresno ranked 105th,
Modesto ranked 152nd and Bakersfield ranked 374th. This is more good news for our city and area
and we look forward to 2018 being another banner year!
VISALIA
P.D.
Our
local police department held its first annual awards ceremony on January
17. Chief Jason Salazar handed out many
well-deserved awards to employees of our police department. One of the awards was the "lifesaving
award" given to four of our police staff who acted heroically when they
happened to be at a concert in Las Vegas in 2017 where shooting broke out. They assisted other concert goers and saved
lives by their quick action, even though they were off duty at the time. Space does not allow me to go into detail
about all of the well-deserved awards that were presented that afternoon. Suffice it to say that we appreciate what our
public safety officers do in our community.
While I'm at it, let me just share part of a letter which I received
from local citizen "Fred" complementing officer Tim Connors. Officer Connors assisted Fred in recovering
some stolen property that Fred wasn't even aware had been taken! Fred wrote "Thanks to Tim Connors, I got
my property back and his actions will probably help convict these
burglars. His quick work helped prove
that there had been a break-in, goods were stolen, and it made me feel really
great!" If you haven't thanked one
of our public safety officers recently for what they do in our community, next
time you come across one, let them know you appreciate their efforts.
SENIOR
GAMES
The
2018 Visalia Senior Games are fast approaching, March 10th and 11th,
and 17th and 18th.
This will be our 3rd annual event, and if you haven't signed
up yet, visit visaliaseniorgames.com.
See you there!
Mayor
Warren Gubler
warren.gubler@visalia.city
