The Liberty County Board of Commissioners are projecting to end their most recent fiscal year with more revenue and less spending than planned.
The 2025 fiscal year ended June 30, and county chief financial officer Samantha Richardson told commissioners. General fund revenues across multiple categories exceeded budgeted estimates, and general fund expenditures came in below the total budget.
“This is attributable to the county’s conservative approach to revenue forecasting,” she said.
The county is on track to close the year with a net increase to its fund balance, and the final surplus will be determined once the fiscal year 2025 books are closed. The FY25 budget called for $62.4 million in spending and revenue.
“This is truly the best case scenario, bringing in more revenue than we budgeted and spending less than we had planned,” Richardson said.
“That’s a mighty good place to be,” said Chairman Donald Lovette. “The citizens of liberty County can rest assured are good stewards of taxpayers’ money. It gives us the flexibility to look at the digest and make adjustments as we see forward.”
The county’s current undesignated and unreserved fund balance is now at 5.4 months, up from 4.8 months in June 2024. That money is the equivalent of what it would take to run the county and pay its bills without any revenue coming in.
“We’re certainly in a good financial position,” Richardson said.
The county could use the surplus to reduce the millage, or put it aside to have reserves for unforeseen events, such as last year’s tropical storms and hurricanes.
The county is awaiting some funds from FEMA to help with storm debris removal from last year.
“A stronger fund balance may help the county’s growing capital needs,” Richardson said. “The resulting increase in fund balance is critical to strengthening the county’s financial position.”
Lovette said the county is on the right track and also pointed to the potential the floating local option sales tax has to reduce property tax burden.
“With FLOST, we could really be in a great place,” he said.
The county’s solid waste operations had spending of $500,000 over its expected revenues. Depreciation accounts for almost $400,000 of the difference, Richardson said, and there were other capital costs, such as replacement of the scale.
Also, the new solid waste assessments have not caught up with gap yet, Richardson said, but she is optimistic it will for FY26.
For June, the special purpose local option sales tax brought in about $1.1 million, as did the transportation special purpose local option sales tax, or TSPLOST. Since it began, the TSPLOST has brought in more than $55.4 million, and Richardson noted recent TSPLOST-funded projects include the sidewalks along Highway 84 in Flemington and the new traffic signal on 84 at Flemington Village Boulevard.
“TSPLOST is vital to our community,” she said. “Without these dollars, we’d have to pay for this out of the general fund and increase the millage to balance the budget.”