County budget director outlines capital and operating priorities, $1M delta in capital replacement fund

Jamie Purvoznak, Lancaster County budget director, presented the administrator's recommended budget framework and explained where capital assets live in county funds, including fund 11 (capital replacement) and how capital items are budgeted. "If you decide to go at 5,000,000, you would likely have to raise the millage rate to get the revenue to get the 5,000,000," Purvoznak told the council when explaining fund-11 assumptions.

Purvoznak highlighted examples of items that live in fund 11—vehicles, ambulances and hardware—and walked through new operating requests, noncapital increases over $50,000 and external agency funding requests. She said the staff is still refining revenue numbers and recommended council direct staff on priorities before first reading. Council members asked for more granular splits (for example, Old English District allocations and delegation disbursement uses) and sought confirmation that some professional services line items were removed from the recommended budget.

Nut graf: The presentation established the capital-versus-operating accounting approach, flagged roughly a $1 million increase in proposed capital-replacement spending over adopted levels, and set the schedule for first reading of the budget and CIP; staff emphasized revenue-certification and further vetting of specific requests before council votes.

Council asked staff to return with clearer reports on fund-11 balances, delegation disbursement uses and the breakdown of external-agency funding so members could decide what to restore, amend or cut during the ordinance readings. No final adoption occurred at the meeting; staff said mill-value and certain revenue detail would be certified within two weeks.