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Commissioners weigh drawing millions from fund balance as requests outpace revenue
Summary
Court heard repeated warnings that approving all department requests would require significant use of fund balance; staff and commissioners discussed options — saying no to requests, increasing the tax rate, or drawing from reserves.
Commissioners flagged a growing gap between proposed FY2025 spending and projected revenues, and legislators and staff discussed whether to use fund balance, raise the tax rate, or deny requests to close the shortfall.
Brianna told the court that current adjustments and rollovers would produce $5.7 million in changes to the proposed budget and that, at the no‑new‑revenue rate, the county would require roughly $6.8 million from fund balance. One commissioner summarized the arithmetic: a proposed budget near $74 million, previously approved items of about $6.3 million, and another $10.6 million of pending requests would together require drawing roughly $17 million from fund balance if everything were approved — cutting an unassigned fund balance from approximately $37 million toward the low‑30s if the ceiling rate is used.
Commissioners repeatedly returned to three choices — say no, raise taxes, or tap fund balance — and several said they preferred to avoid raising taxes if possible but would consider using reserves to smooth the first year of expenses. “If we say yes to everything, we’re gonna have to either raise taxes a lot or borrow $17,000,000 from fund balance,” one commissioner said in summary. Staff and the court agreed to continue working through individual items and to present reconciled figures before final budget adoption.
