From the Anderson Herald-Bulletin:
According to projections from a financial consultant, Madison County will end the current fiscal year with about $7.4 million in the bank.
That represents a 20 percent reserve in the general fund — the county’s main bank account. Bond rating agencies, said Jim Steele, would be pleased with the size of that financial cushion.
Steele, a former controller for the cities of Anderson and Indianapolis, was hired by the board of county commissioners to analyze the county’s fiscal picture after the county council eliminated the wheel tax, and then cut nearly $2 million from the budget in April.
To reach that number, five of nine employees in the Information Services Technology department were fired and some other county government positions were eliminated.
Those decisions led to the county commissioners’ lawsuit against the council to restore the IT positions.
“If the county council had taken no action, the fund balance would have gone down about $3.5 million, which would have been a concern,” Steele said.
At the same time, he said, there will be about $1 million in the county highway fund, and $138,000 in the county road and street fund when the fiscal year ends on Dec. 31.
Two members of the county council who attended the meeting, Mike Gaskill and Rick Gardner, said Steele’s assessment served as justification for the cuts, which they advocated.
“His report confirms what we said, that there was a major deficit that needed to be addressed,” Gaskill said, adding that the problem was created when the county council approved a deficit budget last fall.
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http://heraldbulletin.com/local/x1426062003/County-will-end-year-with-financial-cushion
