by Clifford Blau
 
For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2022, the City of White Plains’s comprehensive annual financial report (CAFR) shows the city's financial position continued the improvement it showed the prior year.  The city's net postion improved by $61.6 million from June 30, 2021.  Revenues were $29.9 million higher than in the prior year, with every category except interest, which is by far the smallest, showing an increase.  We were helped by the receipt of the second half of a federal grant of $22 million.  At the same time, expenses were $28 million lower than in the previous year, mainly due to a change in accounting for pensions and other post-retirement benefits. Without that change, expenses would have been up $6.8 million.
 
General Fund revenues were some $21.4 million above budget without including the restricted portion of sales tax, which is excluded from the budget.  As usual, the city did an excellent job controlling expenses.  General Fund expenditures, without considering the accounting change referred to above, were $10M below budget.  Compared to 2018/19, the last full fiscal year before the pandemic, General Fund revenues were about $30 million higher, although parking revenue was lower by $2M, while expenditures were $11 million, or 6.7%, higher.
 
The city’s governmental fund balances as of June 30, 2022, were $86.8 million, an increase of $35.5 million from June 30, 2021.  $56.4 million of the total was committed or restricted for particular purposes, leaving an unassigned fund balance of $30.4 million, up $13.5 million from a year earlier and about $5 million higher than projected when the current year's budget was prepared. 
 
Outstanding debt grew to $183.6 million from $177.6 million.  An additional $5.6 million of borrowing had been approved by year-end.  The city remains well below its legal debt limit. Looking at short-term liabilities, we find that cash and cash equivalents of $188.7 million as of June 30, 2022, was more than adequate to pay current liabilities of about $26.6 million.  Unpaid taxes receivable were about $100,000  lower than at June 30, 2021.
 
Other interesting tidbits to be found in the CAFR: the amount of taxes abated by five PILOT agreements is about $1.6 million.  Unemployment rate fell from 4.4% to a measly 2.6%.  The median home sales price was $800,000.  Water consumption continued its unexplained decrease, from 8 miilion gallons daily four years ago to 6.65 million this year.  The number of volumes in the library's collection has dropped substantially in the last two years, from 252,000 to 216,000.  We collected $1.4 miilion in red light fines, representing about 28,000 violations.
 
The complete CAFR is available at https://www.cityofwhiteplains.com/DocumentCenter/View/8075/2021-2022