GIRARD — Income tax collections were up in 2025, but speed camera revenue was down, and city officials plan to watch spending carefully this year.

One way officials plan to do that is with a citywide purchasing and expenditure policy that council approved at its meeting Monday. The policy requires department heads to have purchases approved prior to any expenditure of funds.

Auditor Julie Coggins and Treasurer Henry Sforza met with council in a caucus session Monday to review year-end totals for 2025.

Coggins said the policy will help make sure departments stay within their budgets and do not overspend.

She said the policy applies to expenditures of $15,000 or more, which are not that common but do occur in emergency situations such as a water main break.

“This is an internal control for day to day spending requiring purchase orders before buying and to make sure all department spending stays within budgeted line items,” Coggins said.

She said the department budgets will be smaller in 2026 because of less revenue.

Councilman Thomas Grumley, D-4th Ward, said he expects there to be much more overtime this year with work crews dealing with both heavy snow removal from the streets and many waterline breaks because of the very cold weather.

“I understand the overtime will be necessary due to the brutal winter weather we have had that will take a toll on the city,” Grumley said,

Councilman John Moliterno, D-3rd Ward, said “Spending will be a concern this year. We need to be cognitive of the money we spend.”

INCOME TAX COLLECTIONS

Sforza said income tax collections ended 2025 at $4,390,928 which was an approximate $41,000 increase from the 2024 total of $4,349,462. The total income tax collected in 2023 was $4,530,442.

As for the speed cameras, Coggins said total revenue in 2025 was $594,135 compared to $1,360,121 in 2024, a decrease of $765,985. Coggins said in 2023, the camera revenue was $1,529,800, which was nearly $1 million more than 2025.

Officials have said the police department had periods last year of staff shortage, which did not always allow for speed camera operation. Additional staff has been hired, and others are in the process of being hired.

Coggins said the city pays Girard Municipal Court $20 per ticket to process the citations and since July, only Girard was submitting the tickets to the court as Vienna and Liberty were no longer allowed by the state to use speed cameras as of June 30.

She said Girard paid the courts $119,000 for the fees for all three communities.

Coggins said the court did pay back $105,630 to the city, which meant the city paid $13,420 more in fees to the court for the ticket processing.

Coggins said the city did receive a check from Vallourec at $433,404 in employee withholding tax but there was no net profit tax this year from the company. She said the previous year, the net property tax from the company was $1,443,000.

Council’s finance committee plans to meet again at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 23.