Fiscal Year 2011-2012 Adopted Budget - County of Sonoma

RECOMMENDED BUDGET
AUDITOR-CONTROLLER-TREASURER-TAX COLLECTOR
Donna M. Dunk, Auditor-Controller-Treasurer-Tax Collector
The Recommended Budget reflects overall expenditures of $28 million, a $1.9 million decrease from FY 10-11. Recommended
expenditures are supported by $20.4 million in revenues and internal reimbursements for services provided to other departments and
agencies, County General Fund support of $5.4 million and $2.2 million in fund balances (primarily in the Sonoma County Energy
Independence Program - SCEIP) where revenues have been received in prior years for work to be performed in the current year.
Revenues and reimbursements decreased about $2.6 million and overall County General Fund net cost decreased by nearly $1.7 million
from FY 10-11. Reductions in County General Fund support were made primarily in position costs. Other significant expenditure
changes occurred in SCEIP where grant funded project costs decrease as that project is completed and to reflect ongoing levels of SCEIP
funded projects. The significant decreases in revenues and reimbursements were primarily associated with the one-time grant received
by SCEIP in FY 10-11 but also reflect reduced need for unemployment insurance contributions.
Core Services Maintained
• All mandatory services provided by the Auditor-Controller, including preparation of financial statements, receipt and disbursement of
county funds, compilation of the county’s budgets, payroll processing, and financial audits.
• Safekeeping and investment of funds in the County Treasury for the county, school districts, and other local agencies and
management and facilitation of county issued debt.
• Collection and distribution of all property taxes for schools, special districts, cities, redevelopment agencies, and the county and
billing and collection of 1915 Act special assessments bond debt. Collections services provided for the Tourism Business
Improvement Area, unincorporated area collections of Transient Occupancy Taxes, and parking fine collections for many
governmental agencies.
• Administration of the Sonoma County Energy Independence Program (SCEIP).
• Revenue funded accounting services provided to county departments and agencies. Special District Accounting Services charges for
Independent Special Districts will increase to 70% of actual costs (Dependent Districts will remain at 100%). Due to significant
reductions in FY 11-12 ACTTC costs (mainly from ISD reductions), the overall increase in charges to independent districts from this
increase in cost reimbursement is only about 14% higher than FY 10-11 charges, as opposed to the 40% increase in order to achieve a
70% cost of recovery rate.
Services Eliminated or Reduced
The 25% reduction in County General Fund support for programs and services ($1.8 Million) will result in the following:
• Public wait times at the front counter and on the phone will increase and delays in processing tax payments are also possible, which
will impact cash flow, related interest earnings for all taxing agencies and timely processing of tax payer checks.
• Audits that are not mandatory or revenue producing will not be performed and hours spent on mandatory audits will be reduced,
increasing risk that material errors or fraud may not be discovered and corrected timely. Only required auditing procedures will be
performed.
• Collections services provided to county departments will be reduced to monthly billing and payment posting functions. Customer
inquiries will be routed back to the originating departments.
• Non-mandated accounting services provided to departments and the County Administrator’s Office will be reduced such as limiting
assistance with budgetary resolutions and delaying Cost Plan information requests, audit report preparation and document scanning.
• Delays in processing vendor payments which may result in increased late fees and reduced auditing of claims which may increase the
risk that material errors or fraud may not be discovered and corrected in a timely fashion.
Strategic Plan Focus
Investment in the Future:
The County's current financial system, FAMIS, was implemented in 1985, and is currently running on the County mainframe. The
budget system also is an older "homegrown" system that runs on the mainframe. Both of these systems utilize older technology that is
difficult and expensive to maintain and does not provide user friendly access to the data or support other best practice integration with
related processes such as procurement and grant management. In addition, the mainframe itself is no longer supported by its
manufacturer and our agreement with a third party maintenance provider will expire January 2014. In response, staff has begun the
procurement process for replacing the finance and budget systems. If approved to move forward, ACTTC will provide leadership in the
coming year to replace these systems in what is expected to be a two year project and then will manage the future systems as a part of a
County of Sonoma
FY 2011-2012 Adopted Budget
69
Administrative Support & Fiscal Services