County budget gets new look

Appropriations up this year

Gunnison County took a new approach to its budgeting process this year by trying to tie a tangible goal to every dollar spent and making it easier for county taxpayers to track where their money is going in the process.

But not all of the county’s $86 million budget is coming from “local” taxpayers, as they expect to take advantage of millions in grants, bonds and other outside money to reach its goals next year.
Looking to non-tax revenue sources is one solution to a shrinking local revenue stream, including sales tax that was budgeted at $1.317 million this year down to a projected $1.314 million next year. The sales tax collected this year could surpass the budgeted amount by more than $100,000.
However, assistant county finance director Ben Cowan says it’s smart finance that has kept the county in such good financial standing so far.
“[Budgeting] wasn’t as tough as we thought it would have been because the sources of revenue coming in are pretty diverse,” Cowan says.
But shrinking local revenues haven’t kept the budget from growing over the past year. Three of the most notable columns in the county’s budget all show increases. Last year the county’s total appropriations were in the neighborhood of $68.3 million; this year that number jumped to $86.3 million.
The capital expenditures needed to build the new jail and public works facility accounted for more than $13 million of the increase along with an additional $4 million being appropriated to the Gunnison Valley Health System. The $12.4 million in general fund appropriations is nearly the same as it was a year ago.
Luckily, the two pieces of the budget that also saw gains this year, despite the lagging economy, were the available resources and the ending balance, which should climb to more than $22.5 million in 2011, up from $20.7 million this year.
The other safeguard the county is counting on to keep the books in the black is what Cowan called “frugality.”
But all of the belt tightening hasn’t been enough to maintain the county’s fund balance, which shrunk more than a half-million dollars since last year. At the end of last year, the fund balance was 46.55 percent ($5,659,266) of all county expenditures. This year the fund balance has dropped to 40.48 percent ($5,022,294), which is still a healthy percentage, Cowan says.
“The general fund is the one that people look at the most and we were able to stay above the 25 percent reserve that the commissioners try to target,” Cowan said, adding that a lot of the county departments are under budget and the one-time expenses from last year aren’t included in this year’s budget, which also helped the fund balance remain high.
It’s all detailed in the staff proposed budget, which has taken a new, reader-friendly form that makes government accounting data easier to access.
According to the staff proposed budget, “For the first time, this budget incorporates performance information alongside financial information. This is a key component of the Government Finance Officers Association’s recommendation for excellent financial reporting to increase transparency and accountability.”
The new layout means anyone will be able to look at the budget, just like in years past, but probably more people will understand what it says. The new budget format follows the “strategic priorities”—ensure sound infrastructure, protect the environment, promote healthy communities and deliver high quality services—that were adopted by the county commissioners in July 2009.
It also outlines how each department is helping the county achieve those goals and what they cost.
The statement says, “Traditional governmental budgets are based on organizational structure by departments and thousands of budgetary line-items. These budgets are full of detail, but lack clarity about what the government is trying to accomplish and what citizens are actually buying for their money.”
The reformatted budget is an extension of the Managing for Results model the county has been using to keep each department, and the government as a whole, focused on its role  as a service provider.
Some lesser-known county departments, like the Extension or Historical Preservation Department, are pulled out of the previous budgeting model to stand alone, with an explanation of how and why each operates.
The county budget’s new format also makes it easier to track the number of county employees or how much each earns.
Just like the school system tracks the number of students it serves, the county government tracks its employees using a system of “Full-time equivalents,” or FTE.
Next year’s budget includes historic data on the number of “full-time equivalent” employees the county has supported over the last ten years. For example, the county finance department employs six people at some level, but budgets for only 5.76 FTE.
Since 2002, the county’s government has grown by the equivalent of more than 17 full-time employees. That data is coupled in the budget with the salaries of each employee and the level of employment.
Over the last decade, the county’s employment has followed a curve that started at a low of 167 FTE in 2002, peaked at more than 195 FTE in 2009 and has since shrunk to nearly 185 FTE. The budget also details the salaries of each full-time employee.
The staff proposed budget isn’t a final version by any means and Cowan says there are a lot of factors that can change the outcome, not the least of which would be a new county commission being elected November 2.
“We’ll see what happens with the election. That could have some interesting ramifications on our budget,” he says. “The drives in the budget might change somewhat, but in the past they haven’t changed too significantly. But [the BOCC] haven’t met yet to give us direction. The first work session on the budget is [Tuesday] November 9.” That work session is scheduled to last more than half the day.
A public hearing on the proposed budget is schedule for Tuesday, December 7 at 7:30 p.m. in the commissioner’s meeting room in the County Courthouse. The Board of County Commissioners will approve the final budget December 15. For a more detailed look at what the staff is proposing, visit http://www.gunnisoncounty.org/finance_budget.html.