Amidst a backdrop of national unease regarding the fiscal drama playing out in Washington, D.C., Cambridge City Council announced a free cash balance of slightly over $142 million in this year’s budget, a triple-A bond rating, and the minimizing of residential tax rates at Monday’s meeting.

The atmosphere in City Hall was a happy and congratulatory one with City Council members praising City Manager Richard C. Rossi for his team’s stewardship of the city budget. Councillor Marjorie C. Decker, chair of the finance committee, noted that Cambridge citizens will directly benefit from this advantageous financial position.

“This is the ninth year in the row that 75 percent of residents can expect a tax increase of less than $100,” Decker said.

Rossi said that this year’s unusual budget surplus was due in large part to the relatively small quantity of health insurance claims filed, “the lowest [the City Manager’s office] could remember.”

But the tone of discussion at the meeting shifted to one of caution when Councillor Leland Cheung emphasized the misleading nature of the term “free cash.”

“It is not free. It came from the taxpayer,” Cheung said, adding that the money is effectively the City’s “insurance policy against disaster.” Cheung said that he instead preferred the term “unencumbered fund”—a phrase which caught on at the meeting.

City Councillor Kenneth E. Reeves ’72 also stressed the necessary role of the funds in financing upcoming projects such as public school building renovations, given the highly unlikely status of state and federal funding.