As City Clerk Walter Osborne was reading off about a dozen pages of fiscal year-end budget amendments at a special called meeting last week, two words kept coming up again and again: “capital” and “decrease.”

Anticipating lower-than-budgeted revenues, the mayor’s office in January informed all department heads to put off all capital purchases, cut out unnecessary supplies purchases and limit travel. The final budget amendments of the fiscal year ending Sept. 31 reflected that order, with unspent capital funds being shuffled to cover other expenses, such as services, salaries and retirement funds.

Capital spending is defined as any expense greater than $500 on an item with an anticipated shelf life of more than a year. Topping the capital purchase list each year is vehicles — of which the city has roughly 330 for about 550 employees — and then there’s the heavy machinery, computer equipment and furniture that needs to be bought annually.

“Capital is one of those things that is relatively an easy item to take off in order to balance the budget,” said Mayor Paul Winfield. “What we’re trying to do is do our best with what we have, recognizing that there’s certain things that we’ll have to purchase from time to time.”

Even with reduced capital spending in recent years — it’s down to about $1.4 million this fiscal year in the general fund, from $2 million in 2008 — the bottom line is the city owns a lot of stuff. Its total inventory, which includes everything from baseballs to bulldozers, includes about 16,300 items. Listed in the inventory is computer equipment, furniture and other assets, but it also includes about 65 buildings, a number of sidewalks and about 440 parcels of land.

“We probably put in about 100 purchase orders every day, on average,” Purchasing Director Tim Smith said. “Of course, that number is down a little from years past due to the economy — and mainly, it’s capital purchases that are down.”

As much as the city spends on capital — it accounts for 5 percent of the $31.3 general fund budget, and an additional $2 million in other funds for the convention center, water and gas services, the airport and others — it spends even more on supplies, the replaceable materials needed for everyday operations that range from pens and paper to staples and shovels. They account for 10 percent of the budget annually, about $3 million. Meanwhile, 65 percent of the budget goes toward salaries and 20 percent toward services.