From the Anderson Herald-Bulletin:
In April, the Madison County Council’s Republican majority declared a financial emergency.
Because of a $5.8 million deficit, they said, immediate personnel reductions and other cuts were necessary to keep the county solvent.
The county was headed down the tracks of a budgetary “train wreck,” County Councilman Rick Gardner said at the time.
Last week, however, an independent analyst hired by the Board of County Commissioners presented a different view.
“If they thought there was a $4 million to $5 million shortfall, I think they’re off base,” said Jim Steele, a former controller for the cities of Anderson and Indianapolis. He made that statement in a follow-up interview on Friday.
Steele said the county will end the fiscal year on Dec. 31 with a general-fund balance of $7.4 million.
The general fund is the county’s main bank account, and that $7.4 million represents slightly more than a 20 percent reserve based on the county’s adjusted 2012 budget of $32.5 million, he said.
“Based on the general fund balance, I’d say the county is in pretty good shape,” Steele added.
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Last fall, over the objections of Gardner and other members who now make up the Republican majority, the county council approved a $33.4 million spending plan for 2012.
The budget was based on projected billed property taxes of $19.7 million, and $15.6 million in miscellaneous income, for a total revenue figure of $35.3 million.
That number does not take into account an adjusted general-fund balance of $9.1 million carried over from fiscal 2011, according to Steele.
Counties never receive all the property taxes they are owed, however.
So-called circuit breaker provisions in Indiana’s property-tax laws designed to protect landowners from large tax increases from one year to the next reduce tax revenue, and some people don’t pay because of financial hardship.
Those factors, Steele said, required a downward adjustment to the county’s projected property tax revenue, which he placed at $15.1 million.
In part based on those projections, the council moved to cut expenses by about $2 million, eliminating jobs in the Information Technology Services department, the election office and on the county commissioner’s staff. They also trimmed health insurance costs.
Those actions lowered the county’s budget to $32.5 million, according to Steele’s figures.
“If the county council had taken no action, the (general) fund balance would have gone down about $3.5 million, which would have been a concern,” Steele told the county commissioners last week.
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http://heraldbulletin.com/local/x439051135/Financial-analyst-says-Madison-County-in-good-shape
