Since 2017, the pile of cash on Manatee County’s balance sheet has increased from $782.1 million to $1.527 billion at the end of fiscal ’22.
The primary reason for this rapidly growing cash pile is that revenues have increased 55.1%, while expenses have only grown 33.1% thereby generating a cumulative six-year surplus of $970.9 million. This is in violation of Florida law which requires the 67 Florida counties to operate balanced budgets each year.
This cash pile of $1.527 billion is equal to or greater than six years' worth of property tax collections.
This cash pile of $1.527 billion could have funded all of Manatee County’s entire operating expenditures for the last two fiscal years.
The cash pile of $1.527 billion is $1.294 billion above the cash reserves allowed by Florida statute 129.01c1 and c2 which limits reserves to 30% of the operating budget.
One of the obvious contributors to the surpluses is completely unrealistic capital spending budgets which in reality are never achieved, but when approved each September give the appearance of running a balanced budget.
Another contributor is spending by individual county departments and constitutional offices which underspent their budgets by $39.1 million in fiscal ’22 contributing to the record ’22 surplus of $281.4 million.
The trend of large surpluses has continued into fiscal ’23 with a six-month surplus of $198.0 million, cash up an additional $69.8 million, and annualized capital spending at $162.6 million – down versus an average capital spend of $198.5 million over the last two years.
The current cash pile of $1.605 billion (as of 3/31/23) is sitting in various short-term fixed-income funds and is no longer circulating within Manatee County’s economy and is acting as a little understood, but formidable economic headwind to Manatee County’s already tax and inflation-beleaguered citizens.
An obvious cure: tax relief in the form of a large millage cut and/or a substantial variable tax credit applied to fiscal ’24 property taxes.
Mike Meehan, CFA, MBA
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barbaraelliott
In other words while we're being gouged for example garbage and water fees, the county has money to address the situation but are sitting on it while considering once per week pickup and a 30% rise in water fees. So that means a monthly $63 water bill will go to $93 and only once per week trash pick up. Plus fees for stuff not in a can like a fridge or mattress.
This is all because of poor planning and most of all overdevelopment.
I no longer care about property owners rights to develop. I care about inverse condemnation, our property values and assessments, the effects on our environmental health. I care about enough Co2 and oxygen, green space. They say build and they will come, they are coming....I say don't build and they have to go somewhere else. We had a county smart growth plan until they harassed and slandered Joe McClash from office. Damn them to hell.
Saturday, August 12, 2023 Report this
bbenac
While the County is spending an ungodly amount of $ on unplanned, expensive projects, paying off high paid ex-employees to keep them quiet, building 4 parking garages (one option shown to be 24 stories in downtown Bradenton-another that basically paves over all of Manatee Beach except for a small area of sand), and paying an outrageous amount to publicize the costly projects that this crew is promoting to get re-elected, the fact is that all of this money HAS to be budgeted-regardless of what the projects will eventually cost. This is NOT private business accounting. Talking about reserves makes it sound like the County has reserves-when in fact, they have spent them down as fast as they can. All this cash is SPENT for the most part on future projects. This type of opinion is really misleading. The reality is this “conservative” group is going far into debt-and banking on growth to pay for the costs of that growth. However, they haven’t increased impact fees, have approved huge developments WITH NO PLANS FOR URBAN SERVICES, and are facing cutbacks in tax growth . In other words-this gang is bankrupting the county.
Sunday, August 13, 2023 Report this