The May 29, 2018 joint work session between the Board of Supervisors and School Board included certain information that warrants clarification or correction to ensure accuracy and clarity.

Schools’ Share of Budget Increase

An observation was offered at the joint session that of the $27.9 million increase in the County’s total budget for FY 2019, the Schools will receive only $4.75 million (17%) of the budget increase. 

The observation was correct to the extent that the County’s total budget did increase by a total of $27.9 million for FY 2019.  However, it should be noted that this increase is for all funds including capital projects.  Capital needs and, consequently, capital budgets can vary drastically from year to year depending upon the nature of and progress on the projects themselves.  As such, operating budgets and capital budgets should be viewed separately and are presented separately in the table below.  The split between operating funds (top portion of table) and capital funds (bottom portion of table), along with the breakdown by fund is shown.  When capital projects funds are excluded, the FY 2019 Adopted Budget includes a $20.5 million increase in operating funds over the FY 2018 Adopted Budget. 

The observation was incorrect in its indication that the Schools will receive only $4.75 million (17%) of the budget increase.  As shown in the table below, the Schools will receive $11,444,870 in additional School Operating funds and $1,123,840 in additional School Food Service funds, or a total of $12,568,710 in new funds in the FY 2019 Adopted Budget, aside from capital funds.  The $12.6 million in increased funds going to the Schools is 61% of the $20.5 million operating funds increase in the FY 2019 Adopted Budget.  (The $12.6 million increase includes new funding from all sources, including an additional $4.5 million of on-going local funding.  It does not include the new funds added to the Sheriff’s Office budget in FY 2019 for additional School Resource Officers.)

County’s Comp Study – Move to Minimum

There was some question as to whether or not the County’s implementation of the compensation study included moving employees to the minimum of a scale when they were below such minimum.  In FY 2018, we did move all County employees to at least the minimum of their pay scale.  After applying a 1.3% COLA, the longevity increases, and one-third of the Classification Date Parity (CDP) adjustment, if a County employee’s salary still was below the minimum of the scale recommended by Evergreen, the employee’s salary was increased to the minimum of the scale.  If that same employee was then due a further increase to arrive at the total CDP salary based on years of service in his/her current position, the employee will receive the remaining 2/3 of the CDP amount in equal parts in FY 2019 and FY 2020. 

County’s Health Insurance Increases

An observation was offered that the County does not increase its health insurance premiums because increases are funded by dipping into the County’s Health Insurance Reserve.  That observation is incorrect. 

Like the Schools, the County’s health insurance is self-funded, meaning that the premiums paid by the employer and the employee are used to pay the health insurance claims.  The County has not increased health insurance premiums since FY 2015.  This is because the premiums paid by the employer and the employee, and the health insurance budget savings available from lapse and turnover of positions have been adequate to cover the costs of claims. 

In recent years, we have made changes to the way we budget for health insurance for new and vacant positions in the larger departments to address the health insurance budget savings.  Instead of budgeting family insurance for new/vacant positions, we budget single coverage.  As we continue budgeting the lower coverage cost for these new/vacant positions, and as health costs continue to rise, we do realize that health insurance premiums will need to be increased in the future.  Staff continues to monitor this, particularly in light of having tightened our budgeting assumptions.

Staff will provide a brief presentation to note these corrections to ensure accuracy of information disseminated to the public.

Mary Sorrell, Finance Director

Bonnie Jewell, Budget Manager