Budget team seeks clearer definition of "flat budget," directs clerk and finance to revise estimate-of-needs forms

The Budget Evaluation Team spent the bulk of its March 4, 2025 meeting reviewing the county—s estimate-of-needs process and debating what it means to adopt a "flat budget." Members considered whether the county should continue using a February snapshot of budget numbers to build the July 1 estimate-of-needs or switch to a September-based baseline that better captures supplements and transfers.

Jason said the current process is confusing: "We're doing estimate needs at this point in the year, and we're not gonna really use that information until September." He proposed adopting a flat budget approach that would carry the September supplement numbers forward as a starting point and reserve detailed adjustments for the September budget work. Finance staff and the clerk—s office described how the current worksheet pulls a February snapshot and uses formulas to compute payroll-related items (FICA, retirement) and an extrapolated "reserve" column derived from an eight-month snapshot.

Staff and members described two recurring problems: (1) the forms mix calculated estimates (the —what you need— worksheet) with the current adopted budget fields, producing mismatches; and (2) this year—s front-funding of employee health insurance premiums (which finance placed in a central supplement account because of cash constraints) produced a budget presentation that looks like large one-time reductions for some departments. One finance staff described the issue: the county had to "move that down into a supplement account" because cash was not available to expense premiums monthly, and that movement made some department budgets appear smaller on the worksheet even though cash was available in county reserves.

To address the problems, the team directed the clerk's office and finance staff to produce corrected estimate-of-needs worksheets. Specific changes the group agreed to pursue included removing automatic payroll/formula calculations from the "actual/revised" budget column (so that column contains hard-coded, administrator-verified numbers), adding a formula or line that explicitly back-outs front-funded insurance premiums so the published numbers compare "apples to apples," and producing a per-department tracking sheet that records July 1 budget, September supplement additions (with notes about whether each is one-time or ongoing), and midyear transfers so members can see what changed and why.

The clerk's office said it would issue corrected forms reflecting those changes and would re-send the estimate-of-needs worksheets to departments. The group also agreed to continue departmental presentations at the upcoming P&G meeting and to work with offices to ensure the teams have accurate numbers before presentation. No formal policy change was adopted that day; the finance and clerk teams will implement the worksheet adjustments and circulate revised documents for use in the FY2025-26 process.

Ending: The clerk and finance staff will revise and reissue the estimate-of-needs worksheets (removing formulas from actual columns and adding the insurance back-out) and the team asked departments to review corrected forms ahead of scheduled presentations.