Budget audit gives glimpse into COVID experience

Books look good, county spent less than expected

At first glance, an audit of Isabella County finances from the last year turns up pretty boring news. The county’s balance sheet is in pretty good shape, and in fact an expected drawdown of savings didn’t actually happen.

The story is actually how the county’s $21 million budget got there, in how the county’s year was influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic.

There were two revenue sources that showed big changes from what was originally expected to what actually came in: intergovernmental transfers and charges for services.

Intergovernmental transfers includes state shared revenue and other sources of money that come in from other units of government. Charges for services is money the county receives for services rendered to the public.

The state was looking at signif

icant shortages in its own budget, and announced that part of its plan to balance the budget was to cut a month’s shared revenue payments to counties.

That could have blown a $300,000 hole in the county’s budget, but the state refilled it and then some with money from the federal CARES Act. Isabella County wound up taken in $704,000 more in intergovernmental transfers than it budgeted, according to the audit.

With county government shut down completely for part of the year and then bottlenecked for part of the year due to COVID-19 precautions, the county naturally brought in $492,000 less than the $2.35 million it budgeted, said Doug Deeter, the county’s auditor with Rehman, of Saginaw. By the end of the year, the county had brought in $1.85 million charging people for services.

The county benefited from receiving more in property taxes than it anticipated, too. The budget projected that it would take in $12.4 million; what it really realized was $12.7 million.

Between the three, the county brought in $666,000 more than budgeted.

Meanwhile, the county also spent less than expected, Deeter told commissioners. It wasn’t one or a couple of significant things.’

“A lot of little things,” he said during his presentation. It was a matter of buildings being closed throughout the year and curtailing of services.

The county expected to spend $22.3 million but instead spent $21.6 million, or $672,554, he told commissioners.

Isabella County’s administration had anticipated drawing $1.35 million from what was a $8.99 million savings at the start of the year, which would have left $7.64 in its fund balance. When all the bills were paid, however, the county only needed $11,400 of that money. It ended the year with a fund balance of $8.98 million.