Calera City Council members adjusted budget figures Monday night, accomodating lower-than-anticipated sales tax revenues that threatened the city’s $1 million reserve fund.

Facing an $894,000 deficit, Calera Mayor George Roy asked department heads to find areas to cut spending and adjusted anticipated sales taxes.

Last year, Calera collected $4.14 million in sales tax. Officials now expect a total of about $4.5 million in sales tax this year.

The city’s new budget for the 2003-2004 fiscal year projects $7.79 million in revenues and $8.25 million in spending, leaving the city with a $461,861 deficit.

Council members met with City Auditor Mike Henson to save the city’s reserve fund. Department heads went through individual budgets and cut a total of $217,000 in capital items.

During Monday’s city council meeting, Roy sounded optimistic the city could improve even more on the once-dismal $894,000 deficit.

Roy said that Henson told him on Monday the deficit could drop below $300,000 by the end of the current fiscal year on Sept. 30.

Councilmember Lemoyne Glasgow also focused on positives from the budget shortfall, such as the cooperation between council members, department heads and accountants.

&uot;I think it’s been positive because the accountant showed us if we kept going the way we were going we’d show a deficit of ($894,000),&uot; she said. &uot;We dropped the amount we had to take from our savings.

&uot;I think it was a good thing because it caused us as a council and department heads to come together and take care of the budget.

&uot;We’re not broke. We just need to work to where we have a balanced budget,&uot; Glasgow said