RUMFORD – In May, River Valley Growth Council directors OK’d a budget that was expected to be $55,000 short.
However, that gloomy outlook was dispelled at Wednesday night’s board meeting when Treasurer Bill Hine revealed that more money was coming in than had been anticipated. Expenses had also been decreased.
Based on projections after four months have passed, he anticipated that the council would end up with a $20,000 surplus rather than a deficit of more than $50,000.
“We thought we’d be in the hole, so the outlook was pretty bleak, but we’re doing pretty good and turning things around,” said Executive Director Rosie Bradley.
At only a third of the way through the 2005-06 budget, Hine said the council had received $76,396, which is $3,668 more than the total budgeted income of $72,728.
The council’s fiscal year runs from July 1, 2005, through June 30, 2006.
Of the budgeted spending total of $128,308 for the year, $43,560 has been spent.
Bradley attributed the turnaround to a reduction in staff in July from four to two, and cutting expenses from $128,308 to $114,000.
Additionally, there have been unexpected donations from businesses, and unanticipated income from contracted services for the Fractionation Development Center in the River Valley Technology Center, she said.
The rosier outlook “means that we’re not on as shaky of ground as we anticipated, and that we’ve turned things around in a much more positive way. We’re doing our job,” Bradley said of the council’s board and staff.
The fractionation center is working to identify and attract companies that are working with biomass conversion, and to help establish these companies in Maine. Biomass, for the purposes of the Fractionation Development Center, is produced from wood wastes.
At the start of Wednesday’s meeting, Bradley said a recent fund-seeking presentation and tour of the technology center with Franklin Savings Bank officials generated a verbal commitment from the bank to provide $5,000 a year for four years.
“They seemed to think we were going in the right direction and getting back to the economic development basics,” Bradley said of the discussion with bank officials.
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