With the announcement that the city expects to have a greater than projected surplus for the fiscal year ending June 30, some council members urged Mayor Scott Avedisian not to delay road repairs and put the money to use before asphalt plants close for the winter.

On Tuesday, the administration issued a press release that unaudited figures show an estimated gross budgetary surplus of $1,337,840. Both revenues and expenditures are estimated to exceed the final budget by $1,441,105 and $103,265, respectively, said Finance Director Ernest Zmyslinski.

Mayor Scott Avedisian said yesterday revenues exceeded projections thanks to increases in the beverage and meals tax and airport parking, which he sees as signs of an improving economy. The surplus would flow into city reserves and help offset the $3.6 million draw down used to balance the current budget.

But some council members are already thinking how the money should be spent.

“There’s my roads, let’s put the money in that. We still have four to six weeks of fixing roads. Thanks, Mr. Mayor, I appreciate the money for the roads,” Ward 5 Councilman Ed Ladouceur said when informed of the surplus.

Rather than a $5 million bond for road repairs, as the mayor has proposed, Ladouceur favors increasing funding from the city’s operating fund in order to step up the current program and save $3 million in interest costs over the 20-year life of the bond.

Ward 9 Councilman Steve Merolla likewise thinks surplus funds would be well spent on road repairs. As he said last month, when the City Council considered but didn’t vote on the mayor’s bonding proposal, Merolla said some roads are in such poor repair that motorists are driving down the wrong side of the street to avoid the potholes. He identified Major Potter Road off Route 2 as one of the worst roads in his ward.

David Picozzi, director of the Department of Public Works, can’t imagine revving up the road repair program before the snow flies if an additional $1 million became available. As it is, he has not encumbered all of the $450,000 in the current budget.

“Even if you had all the money now, you only have so many companies out there [to do the work]. With the leaves starting to fall, you don’t want to be paving then,” he said.

As for Major Potter Road, Picozzi said the city has undertaken considerable repairs this summer and the road is “on our radar” for a more complete reconstruction. He said city crews are finishing up the repaving of patches on Sandy Lane and that is going to be followed by crack sealing.

Also, he said that the city engineer is in the process of assessing all of the city’s roads, as well as taking pictures of them, to produce a rating scheme that is considerably more sophisticated to the “good,” “fair” and “poor” ratings previously assigned to roads.

As Merolla sees it, the city actually has more than the surplus to allocate to roads. He said that the $800,000 allocated for $1,000 bonuses for city employees in the current budget remains unspent and he doesn’t believe it will be. And he’s not surprised that the surplus is larger than first projected, “because you build it in [the budget] and, low and behold, it’s not needed.”

Avedisian looked skeptically on Merolla and Ladouceur’s suggestion that any surplus could be earmarked for roads.

“It’s not in the current budget,” he said yesterday, “and they’re always the ones who say, ‘You can’t spend outside the budget.’”

With a combination of the larger than projected surplus and the use of reserves to balance the current budget, city reserves are projected to decline from $11,852,791 to $9,480,631.

Since the Warwick School Department audit has not been complete, the city’s preliminary audit projects a balanced budget for schools. he administration reminded that it is important to consider that the figures are only estimates at this time and may change in the final audited statements.