PRESQUE ISLE – Because of some serious belt-tightening last fall, the Presque Isle City Council received two bits of good news about the city’s finances during its Monday night meeting.

City Manager Tom Stevens said Tuesday that the first good piece of news was that, by the end of the year, city officials saw fewer overdrafts than expected – mostly because of fuel prices – to the 2005 municipal budget. That meant the city had to use less money than anticipated to make up the difference.

The other good tidbit of news, Stevens said, was that the city realized a much larger than anticipated final revenue figure of $585,000, compared with $134,000 in total over-expenditures at the end of the year.

“Generally speaking, there was about $450,000 that went to the undesignated fund balance, so between the plusses and minuses of the budget, we were $450,000 to the good,” Stevens said.

The city had five areas in its budget that experienced overdrafts: the airport terminal, library, police department, public safety building and employee benefits and expenses. The two with significant overdrafts were the airport terminal and employee benefits.

Stevens said the first of the two was actually positive news, because the city ended up purchasing more fuel than expected for the terminal – about $103,000 – and then selling it at a profit. For employee benefits, though, Stevens said the city saw an overdraft because of changes and payments related to social security, retirement and health insurance.

Stevens said that the city was aware of the overdrafts throughout its process this fall to finalize a budget for 2006. Taking that information into account, the city manager said that city departments did some serious “belt-tightening” to make up the difference going into 2006. When the overdrafts turned out much less than anticipated, it meant that city officials were able to transfer the money that would have paid for them, along with the rest of the funding that was not used in 2005 totaling $450,000, into the undesignated fund balance for 2006.

Last year, when city councilors set the tax rate for 2005, they used $525,000 from the fund balance to offset taxes.

“When all was said and done at the end of the year, we decreased the surplus by a total of $75,000 [in an effort to reduce the tax rate],” Stevens said.

The city manager said that councilors will return to those numbers in June when they considers both the tax rate for 2006 and how much money they will take from the undesignated fund balance to offset it.

In other news, the council:

. Appointed Richard Scott to fill the city council seat vacated by Richard Benjamin. While Benjamin took the seat in 2004 and was expected to serve through 2007, Scott will serve in the position for one year. The remaining year of the four-year term will be on the November election ballot.

. Donated a 1990 Chevrolet pickup truck with a plow to the Northern Maine Fair Association.

. Set a public hearing date of Feb. 22 to consider repassing the city ordinance regulating commercial displays of nudity. Stevens said that, by city charter, all municipal ordinances sunset after four years unless they are repassed by the council.