Financial Analysis of the Government’s Funds As noted earlier, Sarasota County uses fund accounting to ensure and demonstrate compliance with financerelated legal requirements. Governmental Funds. The focus of Sarasota County’s governmental funds is to provide information on nearterm inflows, outflows and balances of spendable resources. Such information is useful in assessing Sarasota County’s financing requirements. In particular, unassigned fund balance may serve as a useful measure of a government’s net resources available for spending at the end of the fiscal year. At the end of the current fiscal year, Sarasota County’s governmental funds reported combined ending fund balances of $585.1 million, a decrease of $11.4 million compared to the prior year. Approximately 5.6 percent of this total amount, or $33.0 million, constitutes unassigned fund balance, which is available for spending at the County’s discretion. Further information regarding unassigned fund balance can be found in the governmental funds financial statements starting on page 48. The remainder of fund balance is restricted, committed, assigned or non-spendable. These amounts totaled $552.1 million or 94.4 percent of ending fund balance. Of this amount, $434.5 million is restricted by law or externally imposed requirements, $88.3 million is committed for specific purposes by the Board of County Commissioners and $27.3 million is assigned for various purposes by the County Administrator. The General Fund is the chief operating fund of Sarasota County. The General Fund represents 46.7 percent of the total governmental revenues. At the end of the current fiscal year, unassigned fund balance of the General Fund was $49.3 million, while the total fund balance was $130.5 million. As a measure of the General Fund’s liquidity, it may be useful to compare both unassigned fund balance and total fund balance to total fund expenditures. Unassigned fund balance represents 18.9 percent of the total annual General Fund expenditures, and total fund balance represents 50.0 percent. The fund balance of Sarasota County’s General Fund increased by $19.1 million during the current fiscal year. Key factors in the change in fund balance are as follows: Taxes collected exceeded the budget by $2.0 million as a result in increases of assessed property value over the prior fiscal year. Intergovernmental revenues exceeded the budget by $6.4 million due to increased economic activity. Appropriations of $13.7 million for various general government activities were not expended. Additional information regarding the General Fund budget to actual variances can be found on pages 56-57. The Emergency Services Special Revenue Fund has a total fund balance of $17.5 million, a decrease of $5.9 million over the prior fiscal year. This fund balance must be used for fire and ambulance emergency services. The County utilizes a non-ad valorem Fire Assessment for the purposes of funding fire services. The special assessment service charge collected increased by 4.9 percent which is consistent with County’s growth and development. Expenditures remained flat over the prior fiscal year at $94.8 million. The Capital Revenue Programs Special Revenue Fund has a total fund balance of $83.7 million, an increase of $7.4 million over the prior fiscal year. This fund balance must be used to construct infrastructure within the County. The fund received $48.1 million from the local infrastructure one-cent sales tax and $35.7 million from impact and mobility fees to fund the County’s infrastructure needs. The total transfer to fund capital projects was $56.2 million to fund roadway resurfacing projects, improvements to Myrtle Street and the County’s sidewalk program. During fiscal year 2021, $21.5 million was transferred to pay debt service. The Federal, State and Local Grant Funds and has a total fund balance of negative $9.2 million, a decrease of $49.7 million over the prior fiscal year mainly due to funding expensed on the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (Act), Coronavirus Relief Fund (CRF) and Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERA). 37
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