Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Times Reports Lake County Pulls Balanced Budget Out of Its Hat

From the Northwest Indiana Times:

The Lake County Council dipped into its health insurance fund Monday to cure a potential $3.5 million budget deficit.

The cash injection tentatively will allow the seven budget makers to vote Wednesday on 2014 that is sort of balanced.

"It's a calculated risk," Dante Rondelli, the council's finance director, said Monday after the council voted 4-1 to cut $3.5 million from the $26 million set aside for health and liability insurance coverage for next year.

Council members said that at the current rate of expenditures, that might leave the county short of insurance cash sometime next fall.

However, they need to conclude a balanced 2014 budget now, and they hope to realize significant cost reductions by going to a competitive bidding process to find a cheaper insurance administrator and cut costs further or come up with added revenue between now and late next year to close the budget gap.

They said they won't borrow further.
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http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/lake/lake-county-pulls-a-balanced-budget-out-of-its-hat/article_aa9241a5-c114-5cba-8d06-cbc6a5c332e3.html