Management and Performance Review of County Government ...

Executive Summary
To finance these deficits, the county has relied heavily on its fund balances. The
General Fund balance fell from $25.4 million in fiscal 1999 to $5.1 million in fiscal 2004,
a drop of 80 percent. The Government Finance Officers Association recommends that
governments maintain an unreserved fund balance of 15 percent of general fund
expenditures or two months of general fund operating expenditures.
In addition, Jefferson County’s Enterprise Fund has been operating in the red.
From fiscal 2000 to fiscal 2004, the airport ran a deficit averaging $1.7 million per year,
while Ford Park’s deficit ballooned to $3.6 million in fiscal 2004. These deficits are partly
financed by transfers from the General Fund, thus increasing its problems.
Jefferson County has no comprehensive financial management strategy or longterm
financial plan. It budgets and spends funds without analyzing how they further the
county’s goals and objectives. MGT found little accountability for spending and a
shortsighted focus on current-year finances.
The county should adopt a comprehensive strategy that ties spending to goals,
and develop a coordinated process to guide, monitor and report on the progress of each
department and office. It should abolish the current Budget Office and eliminate the
three positions currently assigned to it, replacing it with an Office of Strategic Planning
and Budget. An experienced budget analyst should be hired to assist its director.
MGT found that the county’s budget officer constructed the fiscal 2004 and 2005
operating budgets strictly as line-item budgets, without budget summaries or narratives
that could explain why money is being appropriated and what it is intended to
accomplish.
The county should shift its budgeting process and documentation to a
performance basis, prioritizing funding by desired outcomes and individual performance
measures for programs and departments. All operations, programs and processes
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