BRENDA O’FARRELL
The 1019 Report
The Town of Hudson ended 2024 with a $2.2-million budget surplus, according to its annual financial report approved by council on Monday evening.
The surplus is slightly less than the reported surplus at the end of 2023, which was pegged at $2.8 million.
“The town is in sound financial health,” said Mayor Chloe Hutchison during the meeting.
Although the town’s budget surplus is shrinking year over year, Hutchison said, she would like to see it drop below the $1-million mark.
The auditors attributed the 2024 surplus, in part, to lower-than-expected salary expenses due to several job vacancies at town hall, along with higher-than-expected welcome tax revenues from a larger-than-anticipated volume of real estate transactions recorded in the year.
In 2023, Hudson was one of three municipalities across the province subjected to a financial audit by the Commission municipal du Québec that specifically focused on the municipalities’ budgetary surpluses and financial reserves.
In its report last year, the CMQ said Hudson lacked appropriate planning and supervision when it came to the management of its accumulated budget surpluses.
More specifically, the 35-page report issued by the provincial administrative tribunal in February 2024, which looked at the financial reserves of three small towns — St. Gabriel de Valcartier, a town in the Quebec City region with a population of roughly 3,770; St. Roch de l’Achigan, north of Montreal in the Lanaudière region, which has 5,725 residents; and Hudson, which has a population of 5,614 — pegged Hudson’s accumulated surplus at $9.9 million in 2021. It dropped to $9.8 million in 2022 and has since been reduced as council has used some funds to offset recent capital expenditures.
At the end of 2023, the accumulated surplus stood just under $4.7 million, according to the auditors, while at the end of last year, it was just under $5.2 million.
The town hired a financial consultant to determine the best way to manage the accumulated sums and has since implemented its plan.
The presentation of the 2024 financial report Monday brings Hudson up to date with its obligations to file its fiscal results with the provincial government. Its 2023 report was filed in February, months after it was due. It had been delayed due to a prolonged search for a new treasurer.
Hudson’s long-term debt at the end of 2024 stood at $22,475,330, slightly less than the $23,257,473 at the end of 2023. This puts the town’s debt ratio at $1.04 per $100 of property valuation, Hutchison said, below the level of $1.53 per $100 of valuation, which is the average of Quebec municipalities with comparable populations, and well below the $1.78 per $100 valuation of the province as a whole.