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County auditor presents tentative 2025 budget, flags $1.6M annual general-fund deficit risk
Summary
County Auditor Charlene outlined the tentative 2025 budget with proposed COLA and merit increases, an 11.8% health-insurance cost rise, reliance on PILT revenue, and capital outlays including a $1.5M landfill scale project; she warned the general fund could be depleted if annual deficits continue.
County Auditor Charlene presented the Box Elder County tentative 2025 budget, saying the county provides general government, public safety, public health, streets, fairgrounds, library services and development programs. "We are proposing a cost of living increase of 3.5% and a merit-based increase of 1%," Charlene said during the presentation.
Charlene walked commissioners through fund-by-fund revenue and expenditure projections and emphasized the county's reliance on PILT (payments-in-lieu-of-taxes), which she said makes up about 11.7% of overall revenue. She told the commission the general fund began 2024 with about $5.9 million but ran a $1.6 million deficit in 2023. "If we continue to lose at $1,600,000 every year, we're gonna run out of general fund balance," she said, urging attention to the structural shortfall.
The presentation included personnel and benefit details: an estimated 11.8% increase in health insurance costs and an additional county contribution of 5% toward premiums, plus a public-safety market adjustment of approximately 1.405%. Charlene also identified a large capital request in the landfill fund — a proposed scale-building project she said is budgeted at about $1.5 million — and warned of an unresolved centrally assessed account (a pipeline) that could require the county to repay an estimated $400,000–$800,000.
Commissioners asked for comparisons to peer counties, and Charlene said she could supply those figures for a future meeting. She also noted that the budget materials and historical property-tax data are available on the county website and that a public hearing on the budget will occur at the next commission meeting.
