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City has a little extra dough

For the first time since the economic crisis the city announced today they have a little extra dough on hand, but not much.

City Finance Director Rob Dubow said the city will release their annual finance report this afternoon which will show a positive fund balance of roughly $100,000 for the end of fiscal year 2011 –falling short of their $3 million projection.

"It sounds small but it's a big improvement when over the last two years we've had negative fund balances of over $100,000,000," Dubow said. "It's the result of all of the actions we've taken over the last couple of years to bring ourselves back into balance. A lot of budget cuts that have been painful for both us and the citizens."

Dubow said at the end of fiscal year 2009 the city had a negative fund balance of $137 million and in 2010, negative $114 million.

Meanwhile, there are more budget cuts to come due to weak tax revenues in the first few months of the fiscal year. Not to mention the city is still dishing out about $100,000 a week for Occupy Philly –mostly in police overtime –which is heading into its fourth week.

Over the next few weeks Dubow says the city will be gathering information from department heads to prepare plans for 2 percent budget cuts that would take effect in the next few months. Police, prisons and fire departments would be exempt from those cuts.