2011 Executive Proposed Budget

One-Time Strategies to Balance the General Fund in 2011

The majority of proposals used to balance the General Fund are ongoing expenditure reductions or permanent sources of new revenues. However, there are some proposals that are one-time in nature. One-time changes are defined as proposals that reduce cost in 2011, but do not reduce ongoing costs. Examples of one-time savings from past budgets include building closures and employee furloughs. These represent temporary cost reductions that occur in a single year but are not part of a long-term plan to reduce operational costs. One-time expenditure savings will be added back to a future budget and one-time revenues will be reduced in a future budget. In contrast, an ongoing program reduction that results in a savings of $100,000 in 2011 will also yield a savings of $100,000 (plus inflationary changes in many cases) in 2012 and each of the years beyond.

The following table shows how the budget deficit was reduced from nearly $60 million to zero, as required by law.

Some financial policy changes are one-time in nature as well.  For example, if a static reserve (one that is not expected to grow) is reduced in 2011 from $1.0 million to $0, then that is a savings of $1.0 million in 2011, but does not represent an ongoing savings.  In contrast, if the same reserve was supposed to grow every year by $1.0 million, then the elimination of the reserve would represent a savings in 2011 of $1.0 million and an additional savings of $1.0 million in 2012 and beyond.

In the Proposed Budget, there are $12.1 million of 2011 changes that can be considered one-time savings. These savings include:

• Financial Plan Changes
• Elimination of the OPEB Reserve: 2011 savings of $4.0 million
• Elimination of the Green River Flood Mitigation Reserve: 2011 savings of $1.0 million
• Movement of the initial Green River debt service payment to 2012: 2011 savings of $3.4 million
• Expenditure Changes
• Reduction for Major Maintenance: 2011 savings of $1.3 million
• These savings are not necessarily going to be added back in 2012, however the transfer will have to increase in the future to provide adequate maintenance of county property.  As a note, this same argument can be made for GF funded IT projects.  The 2011 proposed budget includes $177,000 for capital IT projects.  This figure is likely not enough to support the current county IT infrastructure.
• Reduction for FMD Tenant Rebate: 2011 savings of $2.4 million

The one-time nature of these items is recognized in the long-term financial plan. No other one-time savings are assumed in 2012 or beyond.

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