Dironna Moore Belton appears to be getting a handle on struggling Petersburg’s finances — although she has yet to find a way to secure the short-term loan she has called essential to keeping the city’s government afloat.

Nonetheless, there are positive signs. Last Friday, for example, the city’s interim city manager warded off a default on the city’s bond obligations.

According to Ms. Belton’s office and state officials, Petersburg submitted a $1.4 million check to the Virginia Resources Authority a week ahead of the Oct. 1 deadline to cover the city’s annual principal and interest on long-term borrowing from the state agency.

Then on Monday, she sat down with various creditors, mostly regional agencies that are owed big sums for providing water, sewage treatment and housing prisoners, to discuss payment plans to cover past due and current bills.

Such creditors include the Riverside Regional Jail, which has not been paid since March for housing Petersburg’s prisoners and is owed $1.7 million. It also includes the South Central Wastewater Authority that sued the city last week seeking $1.5 million in past due payments, penalties and interest for treating the city’s sewage, a service by law that it cannot cut off.

The authority has requested that the Petersburg Circuit Court create a receivership to ensure fees Petersburg residents pay for sewer service are paid directly to the wastewater authority. The City of Petersburg is the authority’s largest customer, and the authority claims the city’s failure to pay since May is damaging the authority’s finances.

According to those who attended the meeting, Ms. Belton promised to begin making partial payments in October based on forecasts of increased revenues. The money is expected from tax increases the Petersburg City Council approved Sept. 6 and which will take effect Saturday, Oct. 1, including an 80 cent city tax increase on a pack of cigarettes.

Ms. Belton already has settled with some creditors, including the Central Virginia Waste Management Authority that provides trash collection, to prevent a cutoff of that service.

There are other obligations, though, that have yet to be met, including payments to a road contractor that has been repaving U.S. 460, a key road, and payments to the state’s retirement system on behalf of employees. Even keeping police cars on the streets remains a problem.

Last week, neighboring Prince George County agreed to service without charge nearly two dozen police cars that have been parked for lack of money or personnel to service them. The Petersburg Police Department would be obliged only to pay for needed parts.

Despite the positive signs, Ms. Belton continues to keep anxious Petersburg residents in the dark about the actual financial situation she is coping with.

She has yet to publicly release monthly financial statements or a first quarter financial statement to allow residents to know where the city stands and what challenges are ahead. There also is no evident sign that the Petersburg City Council has sought such information.