The challenging winter season has municipal staff in Saint John keeping a close eye on the city’s budget.

Craig Lavigne, the city’s financial controller, gave an update to the city’s finance committee on Wednesday.

Lavigne told committee members the city currently has a surplus of around $2.3 million this year.

However, he said there are some areas of concern, particularly in Public Works and Transportation, which is $788,000 over budget.

A big contributor to that variance is in winter maintenance, which Lavigne said is currently over by $370,000.

“Obviously, depending on what late November and December bring, that could impact it even more,” said Lavigne.

Saint John saw a challenging winter as it dealt with six storms and several freeze-and-thaw cycles.

Lavigne said unanticipated infrastructure failures have put the city’s stormwater budget over by around $400,000.

In addition, fleet charges for vehicle replacements are expected to be over budget by $450,000 due to higher costs for new vehicles and equipment.

Looking at the budget as a whole, revenue for the first six months came in more than $1.4 million higher than expected, largely due to building permits.

Overall expenses were under by nearly $2 million due to a combination of vacancies and the timing differences for goods and services.