Increase In Sales Tax Revenue Buoys Rome Budgets

Although the final numbers aren’t in yet, 2023 appears to have been a good budget year for the City of Rome.

Finance Director Toni Rhinehart went over some of the 2023 final, unaudited, statements during Wednesday’s finance committee meeting. She said that on the expense side, the city departments did well staying under budget.

“There are very few departments that are over budget for 2023,” she said. “If they are over budget, it’s very slight.”

One of the highlights of last year was an increase in local option tax revenue. The LOST distribution formula was renegotiated in 2022 and the city’s split with the county and Cave Spring increased from 41.7% to 45.2%.

“We did start the new distribution split in 2023,” Rhinehart said. “I feel like we did a pretty good job with budgeting what that would do to the overall revenues that come in for sales tax. In December, year to date, we were at $9.45 million versus $8.5 million for the prior year. So, that was a pretty big increase in revenues.”

Total operating revenues are anticipated to be above 2022 by about $1.8 million.

One area that Rhinehart called a “huge bright spot” was the interest on investments, which increased to $659,000 in 2023 compared to $575,000 in 2022.

“It has stayed consistent, even through right now,” she said. “We are still earning 5% on our operating money. That is a huge help.”

Most operating revenues in the Water Fund, which is a self-supporting enterprise fund, were down. That’s largely because of a reduction in water rates as part of a settlement in Rome’s suit against carpet manufacturers, chemical companies and others over the PFAS family of chemicals dumped in the Oostanaula River from upriver.

At the end of 2023, Rome had $154 million in the bank from the settlements. The money is earmarked for the construction of a new reverse osmosis water treatment facility. The settlement money earned around $4.6 million in interest last year.

“We anticipate that the interest this year is going to be way more than we budgeted for 2024 because the rates have stayed consistent and we were told that they might not,” Rhinehart said. “It’s going to be a pretty large number that will help to offset some of the loss of operating revenue that we have incurred on the back of that rate increase.”

Revenue from the hotel-motel tax also was down in 2023, due mostly to Rome losing a number of hotel rooms.

City Manager Sammy Rich gave the committee an update on the proposed Hilton Home2 Suites at Five Points. The Rome City Commission has approved a North Broad Redevelopment Area. Within that area is a Tax Allocation District near The Varsity, where the new hotel would be located.

“We’ve got their TAD (Tax Allocation District) application, and we’re trying to get them into the process,” he said. “We need more rentable rooms.”