County surpluses are red flags

Having money left over at the end of the budget term may seem like a sensible thing, but to Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon, it seems that the trend of operating under budget may be fueling scandal and waste.

The problem has only gotten worse recently with some county departments spending less than 80 percent of their budgets. Those unused dollars, Corroon said, may be inviting unnecessary spending and concealing financial problems behind large fund balances.

"At the end of the year, people have money left over and they ask to do things that wouldn't be part of a normal budget process," Corroon said. "It's kind of like having an extra $20 bill in your pocket; it's just more tempting to spend it."

With more than 43 county funds, the unused money can add up quickly. In the fleet management fund, for example, about 23 percent of a $20 million budget went unused — a total of about $4 million. That amount was added to the division's already growing surplus of more than $10 million.

Percentages were similar in the county's sanitation fund, which had a budget nearly 21 percent over its actual needs.

"My philosophy is, set a budget and stick to it. Obviously we want to be conservative in making projections, but you don't underestimate your budget just for the sake of saying you saved money at the end," Corroon said. "It's just not good government."

Corroon is now trying to implement that new philosophy, which is starkly different from the county's traditional method of projecting higher budgets than needed, creating a fund balance and then drawing it down over time.

The mayor's new push for more accurate budget projections means some divisions will not see the same budget figures as in the past. The fleet division, which is already being evaluated because of its padded budgets, will likely not see the $20 million-plus budgets of previous years, said Assistant Public Works Director Jason Godfrey.

Until now, Godfrey said, the fleet projected its budget simply by looking at last year's figures and adding for inflation. That method resulted in unjustifiably high budgets, Godfrey said, as well as a lack of oversight as to where the fleet was spending its cash.

Some of the fleet's recent scandals, such as excessive overtime and questionable purchases, can be directly attributed to the division's growing surplus, Godfrey said.

"Any organization that has a fund balance doesn't feel an acute need to manage costs," he said.

And those higher balances also draw less attention from the county council and mayor, said County Auditor Sean Thomas. Divisions such as fleet are often allowed to float for years without county leaders noticing money being spent without accountability, he said.