CHC 1979-03-13 - Laserfiche WebLink

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start and where they end in the business of transferring funds arou'n'd. It seems to me that we need some charter language which straightens that paragraph out and says that above a certain amount any rt.ransfer of appropriated funds has tobe done with council approval. The next area that we think we need some controls is in relation to the budget. The growth of the budget; the growth of the debt and the property taxes. All of the proposals that we have put in our letter we try to be reasonable about. There arelimits that can be lived with today but they do put a certain amount of brake or lid on what happens in the future. For instance;' the first requirement is that the operating budget should be balanced. In other words, we should know where the money comes from before we put it in the budget. Incidentally, this is in the present charter-this is nothing new. But the rate of growth of that budget, we think , should be tied to the rate of growth of the county economy. We propose that it be measured by the growth ;i>n the excise tax. It is a little un. clear in our letter as to what we really meant and we spoke about 4% as a basic tax rate of the excise tax, well, now that isn ' t quite true looking at it. And I also found out that there is available on a yearly basis the so-called excise tax base of the county so that may be a good measure of the rate of growth of the county economy. I might point out that the con- con amendments of this past year-that was one of the things, that was imposed on the rate of growth of the state budget that it should be tied to the economy. Incidentally, as I say, we try to be reasonable and put limits that can be lived with. A limitation of that sort is not very far out of line with what has happened over the past 10 years. Although from year to year thereNhave been some major increases in the neighborhood of 13% and 14% in the budget from one year to the next when, the county economy didn ' t rise that fast. Over the 10 year period the excise tax base and the county budget has risen approximately the same rate. Actually, the excise tax rate has risen somewhat less than the budget. It will provide a cap, certainly, on the rate of rise of the budget and take off Some of the pressure to look fornew revenues and new taxes. Our debt service proposal says that the payments for principle and interest on the county debt should not exceed 15% of the 3 year running average of the general fund expendi- tures. Over the past few years we have been getting quite close to that 15% limit. The, debt service back in 1968 was 11%. For a couple of years thereafter it ran around '7%. BiAtarting in 1972 it jumped up. ' 73 even more up to 12% of the operating budget and in fiscal 1978 it was 131/2% of the operating budget. So if you impose a 15% ceiling on it you are not upsetting the present budget. Nothing drastic has to happen as to the amount of money that can be borrowed but you are putting a lihit on it in the future. And a 15% limit', I think , is really quite reasonable. - 4