By Bill Riccio, Jr.
Voice Editor

The city ended fiscal year 2009 in the black – just barely. The bad economic times put the city’s hopes of halving its $4.8 million deficit on hold as it ended the year only $30,000 on the plus side.

The casualty of less-than-expected collections in current levies and back taxes, the deficit remained at its pre-2009 level, where it was expected to be just over $2 million.

The news came just before deadline this week as city auditors, McGladry & Pullen, issued its report. Mayor John Picard called it a snapshot of the economic times, and while not happy the city squeaked by in black ink, he attempted to remain upbeat.

“It’s still my plan to get rid of the city’s deficit this year, and I’m going to work to do that,” he said. “The good news is we were able to decrease our bonded indebtedness down another $9 million.”

That is one of the good nuggets of information in the report issued Monday night. The bad news showed collections down by about $3.2 million during FY09, with shortfalls of $1.3 in personal property taxes and $`1.2 and $.70,000 in back tax collections. Even here, the mayor said the news could have been worse.

“If we didn’t sell the tax liens last year to private concerns, we would have had less to show in collections,” he said.

On the plus side, the city was able to control expenses with an estimated $2.5 million less in outlays than anticipated, according to the mayor.

“In this economy we were able to keep our expenses down. That’s the good news,” he said.

City Comptroller Robert Barron was out of the office Tuesday to make comment.

Asked about how this would affect the current fiscal year or movement in the budget cycle that just began for FY2011, the mayor said he would work through the numbers to see what has to be done.

“We didn’t anticipate more state aid like other cities, just used the guidelines from the governor’s office. That helped in the long run,” Picard said. “Many of those extra funds never happened. Things could have been much worse.”

The city’s “pay as you go” method of operation helped actually got a mention in the context of the report.

“The city receives relatively minimal state and federal aid, it is far more insulated from the impact of state revenue shortfalls than many other cities and towns in Connecticut. With the city’s policy to ‘pay as you go’ for many of its capital projects, the city’s use of cash saves debt service costs from the annual operating budget, thus helping to minimize local taxation. With an overwhelming reliance on property taxes, West Haven’s income stream is stable,” the report said.

Picard said he was disappointed the city could not realize its plan to half the budget deficit, but he said his five-year plan to eliminate the $14.7 million shortfall he had when he took office would stay on schedule.

“We’re just going to have to work harder to do it, but I’m convinced we can get this done,” he said.