2023-10-19-minutes-finance-study-session

Home Browse Search

Staff Report by: Brian Carlson Budget and Finance Director Topic: 2024 Budget Revisions to Gen Fund Expenses Meeting Finance Study Session October 19th, 2023 Summary: • BOCC has informally agreed to the 2024 budget “as presented”, with the understanding that management will continue to explore revisions via topics prioritized by Finance Director • Current 2024 General Fund budget has an approximate deficit of $8MM • Finance staff is presenting expense revisions via budgeting to historic mean-actual, (aka “Bake Sale”) yielding a possible/preliminary reduction of $3MM Background & Analysis: • It is common for departments and offices to independently develop expense budgets to reflect historic- high, so as to ensure a margin of error for costs, and to avoid “asking for more money” mid-year • As a countywide convention, this is inherently inefficient, as most expense categories will hover around historic mean (“average”) • This inefficiency is eventually quantified after year-end via “carry-forward” calculations. County’s budgets have been historically inaccurate, as shown below: • By allowing for regular revisions to adopted budgets, managers can forego across-the-board over- budgeting • Finance identifies over $3MM of possible / likely over-budgeting which might be safely reduced to historic-mean, and has presented these items to directors and elected officials for consideration. • See attachment pg. 2 for details Conclusion / Next Steps: • Informational, not a formal action item; BOCC receive and file; provide feedback • Finance will review with Departments & Offices to arrive at final figures for items identified in “attachment”, for incorporation into adopted 2024 budget. $0 $5 $10 $15 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 Mi l l i o n s General Fund Budget-to-Actual Variance Budgeted Deficit Actual Surplus $0 $5 $10 $15 2019 2020 2021 2022 Mi l l i o n s General Fund Budget Variance