Portage County quarterly update: revenues tracking but contingency spending narrows available reserves

The Portage County Department of Budget and Finance reported first-quarter revenues of about $19.1 million and total expenses of roughly $18.6 million, leaving a certified cash balance the department said was $17.1 million at the end of March.

Jackie Jacqueline Petty, director of the Department of Budget and Finance, told the Portage County Board of Commissioners that the county collected just over $8.3 million in the first quarter from categories that include conveyance fees and sales tax and that overall first-quarter receipts total about 31.6% of the revised annual budget. “For the first quarter, we brought in just over $19,100,000. That's 31.62 percent of the total budget,” Petty said during the April 10 meeting.

Petty said several revenue categories were skewed by timing. Property-tax receipts represent roughly the first half of the year’s collections and therefore made the quarter look stronger; the department’s detail showed $5.2 million in property-tax receipts booked to date with additional homestead-rollback and manufactured-home items still pending. Petty projected total property-tax receipts for the year of roughly $10.6 million against a budgeted estimate of about $10.9 million.

Why it matters: the presentation tied quarter-to-date receipts to the county’s upcoming tax-budget work and to contingency spending decisions. Petty told commissioners she had appropriated a number of contingency items late in the prior week—about $3 million in amendments—so the appropriations total on the contingency list is higher than the snapshot in the quarterly summary. She said the county’s certified resources were about $77.6 million and appropriations were $74.5 million, leaving an unappropriated certified balance of $3,095,552.

Board members pressed for caution before making changes to the tax budget. “I would wait at least until after the second quarter,” Commissioner Mike Timlin said, noting variability in monthly receipts. Petty recommended waiting until additional receipts arrive and the second-quarter patterns are visible before moving tax-budget estimates.

Petty reviewed individual revenue lines: a projected $29.8 million in sales-and-use tax (budgeted at $28 million), first-quarter casino tax receipts of $581,139 with a projected year end near $2.3 million (she said it may be time to reduce that line in the tax budget), local government income tax receipts of about $485,361 in the quarter with a projected $1.9 million year end, and interest income that she projected could total roughly $6 million in 2025 against a $4 million budget because of prior-year volatility.

On the expense side, the department reported a revised budget of $72,659,436 and year-to-date spending of about $18.6 million (25.66% of budget). Petty said transfers and encumbrances for building projects were increasing early-year outlays and explained that those transfers are counted as expenses when processed.

On the contingency list, Petty explained that green-highlighted items had been approved and that asterisks marked items already appropriated. She cautioned that deducting all contingency items from the unappropriated certified balance would put the county “in the red quite a bit,” but emphasized that timing and approval of pending items remain uncertain.

The board did not take further action on the tax-budget numbers during the meeting; commissioners directed staff to continue quarterly reporting and to revisit adjustments after the second quarter.