Midyear county budget 101

The Salt Lake County Council got a full briefing yesterday on the health of the county economy as well as the county budget. In a nutshell: our economy is strong and our budget is in good shape. This was part of our midyear budget review, which takes place in June of each year.

You can see the full presentation put together by the Mayor’s office here. The Salt Lake Tribune’s Mike Gorrell also wrote a good summary of the meeting here.
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Each fall the County Council creates the full county budget, which is based on projections of how much revenue the county will bring in, as well as how much all the county expenditures will cost. The purpose of the June midyear budget review is to make any technical adjustments needed, with the benefit of more specific numbers since we’re halfway through the year. We will also adopt the certified tax rates.

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The next time the Council meets (Tuesday the 14th) we’ll vote on the final June budget for the county. Over the next week I’ll be taking a careful look at any new budget requests and assessing whether they are a wise use of taxpayer funds, and if funding them midyear makes the most sense. I’ll also look at any other technical changes in the budget to determine if midyear is the best time, as opposed to waiting until the end of year budget talks this fall.

Lastly, big thanks to Jeff Thredgold (one of the presenters Tuesday) who helped the long budget presentation go a little more smoothly thanks to the economist joke books he passed out. Maybe I’ll memorize a couple for our discussion next week.

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