County surpluses are red flags

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.

"There hasn't been a lot of scrutiny on fleet historically because their fund has always been healthy," Thomas said. "When they come before the council for their budget, they have the appearance of being a healthy organization."

But Thomas added that coming in under budget is actually a fiscally sound conservative approach as long as it doesn't reach extremes. Most funds, he said, usually project their expenses 1 percent to 5 percent higher than necessary to safeguard against fluctuations in the economy.

In funds such as golf and the planetarium, which are run much like private businesses, Thomas said the philosophy to "under-promise and out-perform" is particularly valuable because of variation in consumer habits.

But programs funded by tax revenues should not be stockpiled with taxpayer dollars simply to cushion budgets, Thomas said.

"With tax revenue funds, the goal should be to get the projection as close to on the dollar, spot on, as you can," he said.

The county does already have some safeguards against departments recklessly spending leftover money, Budget Officer Lance Brown said. Within each fund there are certain categories such as personnel, operations and capital costs, and money cannot be transferred among the segments.

"The bottom line is that the way the controls are set up, people cannot move money around to things that are totally unrelated to what they originally requested," Brown said.

Those rigid allocations are particularly helpful with personnel, Brown said, because many organizations have empty positions throughout the year. That extra money all goes toward the accumulating fund balance instead of going toward new computer equipment or other projects.

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