Custer County finance director flags insurance coding, front‑loaded costs and capital fund risks in first‑quarter review

Custer County commissioners and staff reviewed the county’s first‑quarter financials on April 24, 2025, and Finance Director Vernon Roth flagged a set of items staff will investigate to avoid mid‑year shortfalls. Roth said he had provided commissioners “a copy of all the active funds” and “gone through and highlighted anything that is over a 25%” threshold for the three months of January through March.

The review showed a mix of expected “front‑year” payments and apparent coding or payroll problems that push several department lines above the 25% rule-of-thumb for the quarter. The unaudited combined cash balance across county funds was reported as $8,736,191; year‑to‑date revenue was $3,037,000 against an expected $10,887,000 for the year.

Why it matters: several insurance and payroll lines appear higher than budgeted or inconsistently coded, which could require operational transfers, internal reclassifications or backfills at midyear. Commissioners directed staff to work with Human Resources and the auditors to reconcile those lines and to bring corrected figures to the midyear review.

Most important items noted

- Insurance and benefits: Multiple departments report insurance/benefits lines materially above planned levels. Roth repeatedly said he will “investigate this with HR” and recommended an audit of open‑enrollment results and payroll coding to confirm who is enrolled and how employer contributions were calculated.…