Treasurer recommends analyzing county's revenues

Tammy Helm/Tribune photo Bourbon County Treasurer Rhonda Dunn, left, explains the most current financial report to commissioners Tuesday morning. Pictured are Third District Commissioner Harold Coleman, Commission Chair Barbara Albright and First District Commissioner Lynne Oharah.

As the 2015 fiscal year drew to a close, Bourbon County Commissioners on Tuesday took a detailed look at the county's finances.

Treasurer Rhonda Dunn provided the commissioners with detailed financial reports dated Dec. 23. After reviewing the reports, she recommended a thorough analysis be conducted of the employee benefits fund. She also agreed with commissioners that it might be time to consider hiring an additional employee possibly part-time to take care of day-to-day budget.

Dunn said the report shows a corrected number, from Terry Sercer, accountant with Diehl Banwart and Bolton, for the year-to-date revenue is under budget by $185,112.54 .

She said the change was not due to a budget error but in the amount of taxes the county has collected. Dunn said her office has collected a little more than 96 percent, which gives the county about a 4-percent delinquency rate.

"We budget for 5 percent delinquency rate, so we should be better than budgeted," Dunn said.

She said the budget number for 2016 is $2,753,000. There has been $2,983,000 collected in 2015. She said if her office does the same in 2016, the county should exceed the budgeted amount for tax collections.

On Dec. 22, it was reported the county's deficit was $300,000. What was not stated in a Dec. 26 Tribune report was there also was surplus of $310,000.

Year-to-date expenditures in the general fund are $614,876.70. The county had budgeted expenditures at $3,906,057, which gives the county a cash balance of $627,989.57. The county will need $390,000 in carry over in order to meet the 2016 budget. Also being subtracted from the cash balance will be $155,353.60 for to cover the employee benefits fund deficit and a $10,000 in unemployment payment, the county will have $72,635.97 cash remaining.

"From that, you will still need to pay any 2015 expenses we haven't seen yet," Dunn said. "I don't know what that is, but we always have stuff we don't expect."

The county is not expected to close the books on 2015 until mid or late February.

Later, Dunn said the year-to-date revenue for the employee benefit fund is $2,354,739 and the budget number was $1,328,050. Expenses increased from the budgeted $2,666,370 to year-to-date $2,722,687.

When Commission Chair Barbara Albright asked if it is time to consider asking employees to pay more for their insurance benefits, Dunn suggested it might be time to form a committee to not only analyze the employee benefits funds, but determine if the county "has the best benefits for the county, and that's the employee and employer, and how we are going to share that pie. Then you have the best information you can have when it comes time to make that decision for the employees and the employees have buy-in to how we got there.