Budget preparation season is getting closer in Pulaski County.
Auditor Sheila Garling provided a report last month showing every account in the fiscal year budget. She encouraged Pulaski County department heads to use their restricted funds more carefully as opposed to taking money out of the county General Fund.
Garling says it may be worth the effort, financially.
“We might not save a lot, $100-thousand, $200-thousand. But that’s $100-thousand, $200-thousand that’s still in County General,” says Garling.
Among the items that may need to be polished going into budget preparations are dormant accounts.
Pulaski County has quite a few accounts that have not been used in some time, such as the County Home donation fund. It contains about $25 and could be rolled into the Rainy Day Fund now that the site has been closed.
Garling says the county has quite a few options to balance budgets in 2016.
“I just want to make you aware of it so that when you guys are doing budgets, if it’s something that they can take somewhere else, they need to do that to help the County General Fund Budget for 2016,” says Garling.
Pulaski County borrowed funds to balance this year’s budget, but Garling says the county General Fund is still in the red.
No action was taken, but the Pulaski County Council will consider their budget options more heavily as the year moves forward.
