NRoute will end the fiscal year with a $127,729 deficit and will head into fiscal 2013 about $21,968 in the red in cash flow, the transit system’s Board of Commissioners was told Wednesday.

The numbers are part of NRoute’s final financial report for the fiscal year, which ends Sunday. The new fiscal year begins Monday.

Nathan Cummins of May and Company, NRoute’s accountants, said after the meeting that the cash flow figure does not include a transportation funds payment from the Mississippi Department of Transportation and several other payments due near the end of the month.

Faced with the dismal financial picture and no increase in funding for fiscal 2013 from the City of Vicksburg or Warren County, the board said Wednesday it is going to start cutting the bus system’s fiscal 2013 budget.

The board authorized a subcommittee of commissioners Mark Buys and Don Brown and executive director Evelyn Bumpers to review the budget and recommend cuts to bring spending in line with its anticipated revenues. Bumpers did not attend the meeting because of illness.

NRoute’s 2013 budget is $886,110. Buys, a banker, said part of the budget’s projected revenue was based on the city and the county raising NRoute supplements.

The transit system requested $264,063 from the city for 2013, $129,063 more than the annual $135,000 the Board of Mayor and Aldermen has allotted NRoute each year since 2009. The city’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen, however, held NRoute funding to $135,000. The county kept its supplement at $30,100 for 2013.

The bus system has been in financial trouble for most of the year and received additional supplements totaling $30,895 from the city since June to head off what was then projected to be a $15,000 year-end deficit.

The commissioners blamed the economy, the lack of support from the city and county and private business and a news story in The Vicksburg Post Sept. 2 that analyzed the system’s operations and finances.

“I feel, as a commissioner, that we are put in a very precarious position,” Buys said. “The negative publicity and the lack of funding from the city and county have made it difficult to get support in the community to represent this as a public entity.”

Buys criticized the Board of Mayor and Aldermen for failing to provide more financial support and failing to appoint new members to the board and reappoint current members whose terms have expired.

The City Board has not filled vacancies created when Rose Carson resigned in December 2010 and Diane Gawronski resigned in December 2011.

Buys’ term expired in 2010 and Brown’s expired in February. Commissioner Alvin Taylor’s term expires in February 2013.

“It’s hard to conduct business when it’s difficult to get a quorum because there’s only three of us,” Buys said.

“We can’t get the private sector to support us. It’s a bad situation because we’re trying to be good stewards of the taxpayers’ money,” he said.

Brown agreed, saying the recent bad publicity has reflected badly on NRoute, not just locally, but at the state level, adding MDOT, had investigated and audited the transit system.

“They found nothing,” he said. “That article in the paper didn’t help us at all.”

“Transportation’s not a luxury, it’s a necessity,” he said. “I’ve told friends to put their keys down for a week and try and do their business. Then they would empathize with the people who need this service.”

Buys and Brown said NRoute is an important economic development tool because businesses look at a city’s transportation system to see if it can get potential employees to work.

“This situation is due to circumstances beyond our control,” Buys said. “My commitment is to move forward and see it through, to continue until the city takes over or it ends.”

In other action, the board approved spending $61,503 on insurance — $52,006 for liability from Beacon Insurance of Boston and $9,497 for workers compensation from Berkley Insurance of Greenwich, Conn. Both policies are administered by Commerce Insurance of Jackson. The board paid $58,732 for both policies in fiscal 2012.