After months of wrestling with costs and squeezing every department to the bone for savings, Halifax Regional Municipality is in the black.

The year-end financial statements for the year ending March 31 are in and they show the municipality has a $17 million surplus.

Combined with a carryover of about $2 million from the year before, the total surplus is about $19 million.

Coun. Russell Walker (Fairview-Clayton Park), chair of the audit and finance committee, tells News 95.7 no one was expecting to see a positive balance on the books.

“This was a big surprise for everybody,” he said. “We were operating on an as-you-go budget hoping to come out equal, but this is really good.”

Committee vice-chair Coun. Barry Dalrymple (Waverley-Fall River-Beaver Bank) says there were a couple of key areas that brought in big savings to contribute to the surplus.

“Policing was one,” he said. “Obviously in overtime, that’s been a big priority over the last couple of years and, quite frankly, we’ve been running shortages in positions. Regardless of what government it is, most of your money goes into salaries.”

The councillors say the money means the municipality’s depleted reserve funds can be restored, and Dalrymple says some will be funnelled towards major projects like the Sackville sports stadium.

“You know, a lot of times when residents email or call about specific projects and say, ‘You can’t afford that,’ this is the reason why we can,” he said. “It’s because we’ve been planning for many of these things, the possibility of them in the future.”

Dalrymple credits HRM staff with doing highly detailed and conscientious work with budget planning – and he says councillors have helped out as well.

“The program we went to a couple of years ago with every councillor sending in just pages and pages of email with suggestions on how to save money – a couple of thousand dollars here, a hundred dollars there – we’re seeing the fruits of that now,” he said.

Walker says it’s a good-news story, but says there’s no room for anyone to get carried away.

“There’s no guarantee this is going to happen again next year, make no mistake about that,” he said. “It was an anomaly and it’s going to take its course and we have to wait to see for next year. But it’s sending us in a good direction for next year.”