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.
They also discussed key legislative issues to take up with the NC General Assembly. There are 14 of them. They mostly ask for state funding of programs they would like to have in the county. About half of them make sense to us. Read those HERE if you are interested.
Respectfully submitted,
Hal James, Chairman, CCTA’s Watchdog Committee
