Keeping an eye on the future by keeping spending down has been the line the Monroe County Council professed for 2014.
With budget hearings starting Sept. 10, Wednesday night’s budget work session at 5:30 p.m. in the Nat U. Hill meeting room will set the tone for county discussions as they move forward, said council President Geoff McKim.
“This is the first time for the council to review the big picture,” McKim said. “We’ll look at the largest requests before drilling down into the specific requests.”
Right now, the county is looking at a $1.4 to $1.5 million deficit in the 2014 budget if every request made by departments is granted, according to Monroe County Auditor Steve Saulter. It’s not unusual for proposed budgets to start out with deficit problems, and past councils have been able to whittle them down.
Departments had used more than 50 percent of their 2013 budgets as of June, which is an indication that reversions of unspent money will likely be down in December, Saulter said.
Early in 2013, Monroe County faced some possible cash-flow issues, something that needs to be addressed for 2014 as well, Saulter said.
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