Some good came of my disclosing all this to our CCTA members and friends. A family member of one of the folks eligible to receive services through Trillium called me to discuss the Trillium service. She stated that her family member was on a 10 year waiting list for that service! She said that she knows of many cases where that is true. She also said that, while this is going on, several employees of Trillium have salaries in the $500,000 range. It sounds a lot like the Veterans Administration, doesn’t it? Well, they are both federal government programs, aren’t they? I guess it’s one more part of the huge swamp that needs draining; do you think the President even knows about this part yet??? Anyone want to volunteer to write or call him?
The FY 2018 Budget Overview revealed very little that is new to us. Education spending is up as is the total county spending. The presentation mostly concentrated on what a good job staff and commissioners have done in saving up taxpayers funds to be able to spend on other programs they will initiate in the coming year.
The stated goal is for the fund balance to be 18% to 25% of the annual budget at the end of each fiscal year. Last June, it was $33.1 million dollars, or 24%. Having a reserve is healthy. I applaud it.
However, Commissioner George Liner said that, if this year’s ending fund balance should be above 25%, he didn’t want it to go into the Capital Reserve Fund (funds set aside for capital improvements over the coming 5 years). Instead, he wanted to consider keeping funds in the general fund “because we can be more flexible with that.”
There was no talk of cutting taxes if the fund balance went above 25%.
There was no talk of cutting any expenses.
Respectfully submitted,