BY MARK J. CRAWFORD
Telegraph Editor
STARKE — Bradford County commissioners received a look at how the general fund, fire rescue and road departments are performing so far this year.
Finance Director Dana LaFollette discussed the savings or use of fund balance for the first quarter of the fiscal year, which includes the months of October, November and December of 2022.
The general fund covers the board’s spending and began the year with an $8.56 million fund balance. The general fund added $4.3 million in recurring revenue during the quarter but spent $4.7 million. At the same time there were one-time transfers of 1 cent sales tax revenue and fiscally constrained funds into the general fund totaling more than $1.2 million.
This resulted in a savings to the fund balance of more than $824,000 and total fund balance of nearly $9.39 million as of Dec. 31.
Annualized, LaFollette projected the general fund could grow by nearly $3.3 million by the end of the fiscal year, taking it from $8.56 million to $11.86 million.
During the same quarter, Bradford County Fire Rescue received $1.58 million in revenue and spent $1.64 million. The overage of $61,668 was spent out of the beginning fund balance of $1.22 million, resulting in a nearly $1.16 million balance as of Dec. 31.
If that trend continues, the department will spend more than $246,000 out of the fund balance, lowering it to $973,782 by the end of the fiscal year.
Similarly, the road department spent $595,390 while new revenue was more than $91,000 short of that. This lowered the nearly $1.96 million beginning fund balance to $1.87 million as of Dec. 31.
By the end of the fiscal year, the fund balance could be lowered by $346,818 to $1.59 million.
Fund balances were used to help balance the budget this year, LaFollette said. The goal was to zero out those individual fund balances and reduce the number of revenue transfers from the general fund to other departments.
LaFollette said once a fund balance is used, it is no longer available at the end of the fiscal year. The only remining funds should be those designated as reserved for contingency, she said, a line item implemented in most departments that require board approval for spending.
So, of the general fund’s $31.7 million budget (with nearly $900,000 in grants), $11.45 million is in reserve for contingency.
The road department’s $16.6 million budget (with more than $11 million in FDOT grants) included $400,000 in reserve for contingency.
Fire rescue’s $7.99 million budget (with more than $800,000 in grants) includes $500,000 in reserve for contingency, 25% of which had been spend by the end of the first quarter.
