Lucas County budget continues to grow

In this post on the Lucas County 2008 budget, I pointed out the spin that was being offered by the commissioners.

They claimed their 2008 budget was actually less than expenditures in 2007. As I said at the time, that might have been an accurate description, but it also meant that they spend nearly $5 million more than they had budgeted.

Today I received an updated spreadsheet showing the actual expenditures for 2007 and the budget for 2008. The numbers don't match up to the ones in the press release. I've asked for an explanation of the discrepancy.

In the meantime, I've listed the General Fund actual budget totals from the spreadsheet for your reference.

2002 - $129,658,527.66

2003 - $131,220,411.32 (1.2% higher than previous year)

2004 - $132,570,059.06 (1.03% higher than previous year)

2005 - $135,329,510.19 (2.08% higher than previous year)

2006 - $138,762,842.16 (2.54% higher than previous year)

2007 - $145,143,642.12 (4.57% higher than previous year)

2008 - $147,861,506.87 (budgeted - is actually 1.9% higher than last year)