The construction of the budget for Fall River’s F-Y 2021 continues with early indications of a potential shortfall.
At a charter-mandated presentation of early looks at the budget, a $4.7 million gap was highlighted. The City’s Chief Financial Officer and Interim City Administrator said that its a bit too early for any type of paranoid concern.
"It's a little bit premature to be talking about the gap," Mary Sahady said. “I know it became part of the conversation because of the Charter requirement of providing a 180-day forecast to be presented before the year's end.”
Sahady said in their preparations for this presentation, outlooks and projections were very conservative.
“We want to be as conservative as possible when we're presenting it,” she said. “So, we asked the departments their best guesses at the time of it being put together."
The City’s C.F.O also said that the numbers that Hope Heal Health will produce has yet to be reflected in any type of revenue projection.
"We have other areas that we don't currently have factual information on,” Sahady said. “We're waiting on what the potential revenue will be from Hope Heal Health.”
Sahady continued, “we know what we're getting from Northeast on a monthly basis so we can make a fair estimate of what those local receipts will be but the second location hasn't even been open for a month so I'm not familiar with their receipts. We're looking into that."
Going forward now, Sahady said the process will continue with departments being asked of their needs.
"At this point, we'll start vetting the other departments.,” she said. “We'll look at their needs and what we really need to include in the budget."
Contract negotiations will also be something part of the process of coming up with this budget.
"At the same time, we're negotiating three contracts - police, fire and teamsters,” Sahady said. “So, that will definitely play in to where the budget ends up.”