The Riley County commissioners held their first 2020 budget works session during their meeting Monday.
Budget and Finance Officer Tami Robison went over the five funds directly supported with tax levy dollars. They are the general, Riley County Police Department, Capital Improvement, Economic Development, and Health Department funds. All of these accounts had variances of more than was budgeted.
The variance for the general fund is $3.4 million, which is due to the interest and sales tax coming in higher than what was budgeted. The city county special highway revenue and the mortgage and recording fees also came in higher than expected.
However, wages and benefits came in lower than what was budgeted, which is also affected by the $2.5 million in the budget stabilization fund.
Robison recommends increasing the county cash reserves by $250,000. This would then reflect a total 2020 budget reserve of $2.5 million for the General Fund. She also brought up the option to transfer $1 million into the CIP fund in 2019.
Commissioner Ron Wells agreed with the recommendation stating they have some expensive projects coming up later this year.
Robison moved on the the RCPD fund, which currently has a variance of $568,000. However, $400,000 of that is being reserved for the RCPD radio costs, with a remaining balance of $168,000. This could be used for any shooting range, unexpected infrastructure, or unexpected inmate medical costs that may come up. Robison recommends the commission leave that balance in for those reasons.
The CIP fund has funds for projects that haven’t yet been activated or costs carrying over. Robison recommends they leave the funds for any future project requests. She also recommended they leave the remaining balances in the Economic Development and Health Department funds.
The Health Department fund has a higher variance due to the health insurance cost being lower than budgeted, as well as lower software costs. They also want the money to remain because transfers and increases could affect their grant dollars, which made up 52% of their funding in 2018.
Commissioners agreed with the recommendations, but did not take any action on the items yet. They will be brought back up during their Thursday meeting
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