Thanks to cash and other resources contributed by the former North Cumberland and Cumberland Hill districts, the unified Cumberland Fire District may have cumulative surplus or fund balance account of $2 million or more, Finance Director Tom Bruce told the fire committee members last week.
The amount represents 30 percent of its $7.3 million operating budget, he said, a higher percentage than many communities can claim.
Before being absorbed into the unified district last year, the elected boards of the four individual fire companies had debated about what to do with their surplus funds.
In the end, residents of the North Cumberland and Ashton-Berkeley districts voted to reduce their final tax bills by applying the funds to the final operating budgets they adopted.
It was a move that's been roundly and repeatedly criticized by the man who became chairman of the Cumberland Fire District, Bruce Lemois, because it reduced funds coming to the new district and widened the gap between the tax rates of a year ago and the rate adopted this past May.
Now, unaudited figures offered by Tom Bruce show that at the close of the last final budget year, July 1, 2014 to June 30, 2015, North Cumberland turned over the most money to the unified district - $569,350 in cash and $136,000 in outstanding taxes owed by residents.
Cumberland Hill closed its books on June 30 with $505,000 in cash remaining plus $43,000 in receivables.