The Cedartown City Commission voted Monday to obtain a $1 million tax anticipation note to cover a projected shortfall as expenses are expected to exceed income for the first few months of the year.

The move was expected. In previous years the city has ended December with a negative account balance. Commissioners in 2007 set a goal of creating a positive end of year balance and are still working toward that goal.

Finance Officer Glynn Jones informed the board that the city began January with $52,075 available cash. That’s better than some past years, but Interim City Manager Tommy Engram said that figure was worse than it looks on paper.

“You can carry an awful lot of cash over if you don’t pay your bills,” Engram said, noting that several expenditures were carried over for payment in January.

Even with the TAN, there is more cost-cutting ahead for the council. A special work session has been scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 22 to begin the task of finding areas to cut out of an already-tight budget.

“It’s going to be tough,” Commissioner Chairman Larry Odom said. “”We’ve already goine through it three times. We’ll do what we have to do.”

Without cuts, Jones told commissioners, the city will end 2009 with a deficit of more than half a million dollars — an estimated $529,000 in the red.

In other business Monday, the board unanimously elected Odom to another term as the board’s chairman. Johnny Barrett was elected unanimously as Chairman Pro-tem.

The commission also approved the purchase of a computerized GPS-based inventory system for the public works department.

The PinPoint GeoTech system includes software and portable hardware units that can be used to create a database of such things as trash that needs to be picked up.

Engram said the system will save the city money over the current system — which he said basically consists of crews driving around in large trucks, burning diesel, looking for trash to pick up.

* Edit -- Headline typo corrected*