On the last day of 2018, the Clark County Council held an emergency meeting to make corrections to its annual budget to account for overspending that had previously gone unnoticed.
Under state law, county expenses cannot exceed authorized spending. Because of a failure in the county’s software and by departments to monitor their budgets, the council needed to approve a series of funding packages totaling $4.2 million that cover their expenses for the 2017-2018 budget cycle.
“The key point that I’ll keep coming back to is, we have adequate funds,” Clark County Manager Shawn Henessee said. “What we are looking for is authority to spend those funds.”
The funding packages include:
• $1 million to pay for liabilities of the county’s health care self-insurance fund. Premiums, claims, legal and other expenses were approximately 3 percent higher than budgeted, according to Henessee. The fund needed an increased appropriation to process remaining payments. While expenses for the fund have increased, so have its revenues. The fund has enough money to cover expenses, but the county still required the council’s authorization to spend it.
• $75,000 to support and replace computer software and hardware. The county has sped up the replacement of Windows 10 machines, which contributed to the situation. The fund has enough money to cover expenses.
• $820,000 for a fund that pays for routine maintenance and operations of the county. Although the county sought to slow spending in this fund, it still exceeded its budget due to increases in utilities, services contracts, supplies and other expenses. Henessee said that he expected the fund to have a shortfall and for the county to have to use a line of credit to cover it.
• $80,000 for the Tri-Mountain Golf Course. The golf course has seen a record year for golf course-related sales. Henessee explained that more revenue means there are more costs for the purchase of goods and items to be sold.
• $2.25 million for the cleanup of Camp Bonneville. Clark County is currently working with the U.S. Army to clear explosive munition left at the former military site as part of a plan to open it to the public. Henessee said that the county is reimbursed by the federal government for the cleanup costs.
The packages were unanimously approved by the council Monday. Although new members of the council have been sworn in, their terms weren’t officially to begin until the new year.
“In the end, it’s fundamentally a management issue that we are taking a number of steps to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” Henessee said.
Councilor John Blom noted that it was better that the county caught the problem rather than to have it come up in an audit.
