Moving into Fiscal Year 25

Sweetwater County is prepared to head into Fiscal Year 2025 with a balanced budget and a roughly $4.2 million increase in projected budgeted reserves when comparing this year's budget to last year's. 

The Sweetwater County Board of County Commissioners hosted a special meeting last Thursday, June 27, to have a public hearing and adopt the Fiscal Year 2025 budget for the county. However, due to the need to follow state statutes regarding the advertisement of the budget, the commissioners only voted to tentatively approve the budget, and plan to formally adopt it next week. 

Commission Chairman Keaton West explained during the special meeting that it was brought to the board's attention that although the notice for the special meeting had been advertised, the budget summary should have also been advertised publicly prior to its adoption to comply with state statutes. Chairman West added that state statutes also give counties until the third Monday in July to formally adopt their budget. In order to give direction to county staff regarding considerations and decisions like payroll, the commissioners chose to continue with the approval process on a tentative basis.

"We're going to tentatively proceed with the proposed adoption and resolution," West explained. "However, to be compliant and give full transparency to the public as they deserve, we will re-advertise the proper budget summary." 

West pointed out that the budget summary would be published in the July 3 edition of the Green River Star, the county's newspaper of record, along with a notice for another special meeting next week in order to have another public hearing and adopt and formalize the budget officially. 

"I appreciate that we had someone out there watching what we were doing," Commissioner Robb Slaughter said regarding the state statutes being brought to the commission's attention. "It lets us know that we have got people who are watching and making sure that we are abiding by our statutory guidelines. . . . [That] should keep us on our toes a little bit more."

Discussing the proposed budget during the special meeting, County Accounting Specialist Rebecca Romero explained that the only change to the proposed budget numbers to make note of was that the PILT (Payment of Lieu of Taxes) funding came in at $228,000 more than was anticipated. 

Taking PILT funding into consideration was an important part of balancing this year's budget for the commissioners. The county hosted several budget workshops in May and June in order to go through projected revenues and expenditures for the county. During the June 18 budget workshop, the last to be held before the tentative budget adoption, the commissioners worked through which sources of revenue could be used to balance the final shortfall in the budget, including considering PILT funds. 

Commissioner Slaughter explained that part of the budget planning process includes trying to estimate PILT funding. The county's usual practice is to budget using the PILT numbers received the previous year, rather than an estimate of the numbers for the coming year. This can lead to a difference once the actual PILT numbers come in. 

The commissioners also considered other sources of revenue, such as funding from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), and impact assistance funding received from previous projects. 

When it came down to the final numbers, the commission was left with a roughly $127,000 shortfall, which they determined could be covered by PILT funds, leaving a balanced budget. 

After considering total expenditures, revenues, and amounts in different county reserve funds, the budget is left with a total proposed budgeted reserve amount of $44,593,365. This is an increase from last year's proposed budgeted reserves of $40,335,045. 

Looking at the increase in reserves, Commissioner Island Richards pointed out that the county made deep cuts to capital projects during the process of balancing the budget, and asked whether some of the apparent extra funds in reserves could be put back towards those projects. 

Chairman West, however, pointed out that much of the addition to the reserves came from having to pull from various sources of revenue to cover costs in general. 

"We're using 100% of the carryover, plus we're dipping into some ARPA, plus we're dipping into the impact assistance fund," West said. "It hasn't been fun making those cuts. Part of those cuts were county core. My opinion would be to move forward as is and save that conversation for another day." 

Commissioner Slaughter also noted that his perception was that the county wanted to maintain a higher level in the reserves in anticipation of potential future funding needs that could include large expenses. 

"I think if we find that there are capital needs that we have to take care of we can always amend at that point in time and take care of them," Slaughter added. 

Commissioner Richards answered that the commissioners didn't need to move the funds for capital projects right away as part of the budget process, but he wanted them to keep the issues in mind to potentially return to later. 

"I just think there are some projects in there that we need to take pretty seriously," Richards said. 

Chairman West also acknowledged the hard work that was done to get the budget to an acceptable place. He explained that the commissioners cut over $7 million in just the last two budget sessions, and had to work with trying to take care of general county business while also responding to extra projects and future unknowns. On top of that, he added that the county was still able to include a 3% Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for employees. 

At the end of the workshop, West said that after getting the budget balanced and adopted the commissioners would be able to "take a deep breath and move forward into Fiscal Year 25 and address needs as they come."

The commissioners will host another public hearing and special meeting to formally adopt the county's Fiscal Year 2025 budget next Thursday, July 11.