2007 CAFR Part 1 - Laserfiche WebLink

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The charts above illustrate the County's governmental expenses and revenues by function,and its revenues by source. As shown,public safety is the largest function in expense(40 percent), followed by general government(16 percent)and sanitation(14 percent). General revenues such as property and other taxes are not shown by program,but are effectively used to support program activities countywide. For governmental activities overall,without regard to programs, property taxes are the largest single source of funds(57 percent),followed by charges for services (12 percent)and operating grants and contributions(12 percent). Business-type activities. Business-type activities decreased the County's net assets by$182,765. Expenses for health,education and welfare account for all of the$698,329 of expenses. Charges for services were$345,802,operating grants and contributions were$134,211 and investment earnings were$35,551. Expenses increased$151,128(28 percent)due to increases in repairs and maintenance($99,843)and lease expenses($39,028). FINANCIAL ANALYSIS OF THE COUNTY'S FUNDS As noted earlier,the County uses fund accounting to ensure and demonstrate compliance with finance-related legal requirements. Governmental funds. The focus of the County's governmental funds is to provide information on near-term inflows,outflows,and balances of spendable resources. Such information is useful in assessing the County's financing requirements. In particular,unreserved fund balance may serve as a useful measure of a government's net resources available for spending at the end of the fiscal year. As of the end of the current fiscal year,the County's governmental funds reported combined ending fund balances of$287.2 million,an increase of$80.2 million in comparison with prior year. Approximately 52 percent of this total amount($149.5 million)constitutes unreserved fund balance,which is available for spending at the government's discretion. The remainder of the fund balance is reserved to indicate that it is not available for new spending because it has already been committed 1)to liquidate contracts and purchase orders for last fiscal year($71.9 million), 2)to pay debt service($18.8 million),or 3)for a variety of other restricted purposes($47.0 million). The general fund is the chief operating fund of the County. At the end of the current fiscal year, unreserved fund balance of the general fund was$29.0 million,while total fund balance reached $44.6 million. As a measure of the general fund's liquidity, it may be useful to compare both unreserved fund balance and total fund balance to total fund expenditures. Unreserved fund balance represents 15 percent of total general fund expenditures,while total fund balance represents 23 percent of that same amount. The fund balance of the County's general fund increased by$9.6 million during the current fiscal year. Key factors in this increase are as follows: • An increase of$28.2 million(18 percent)in property tax revenue due to increasing property values. • An increase of$5.0 million(100 percent)in investment earnings due to an increase in interest rates and the amount available to invest. • An increase of$6.5 million(21 percent)in general government expenditures due primarily to increases in expenditures for the legislative branch($1.1 million),research and development - 19-