On Wednesday, staff told county commissioners that they were presenting a balanced budget, closing the roughly $4-million gap from the last budget meeting.
“Let that be the headline that we do have a balanced budget today,” budget officer Amanda Kostusiak told commissioners.
There are still some unfunded programs and unmet asks and, as a whole, commissioners seem amenable to working on getting some of those into the budget, in particular pre-K. However, there remains some daylight between commissioners on how to make up that funding, with the main options being to tap the county’s revenue stabilization fund (a $300 million fund from the sale of the hospital), raise taxes, cut other programs, or try to push to the limit of the county’s general fund balance (basically, its rainy day fund)…