'Casual' county coin report Part VI

Chris Caldwell

And . . . again the Knox County Commission heard from head bean counter Casual Chris Caldwell during its monthly luncheon, and, so far, it looks like we're still on pace to get as much as $12 million in surplus revenues when the finance team officially closes the books in late August or early September.

He said as of the end of May the county's general fund was $5.3 million ahead compared to where it was at the same time last year. He noted that at the end of April the county was actually about $9 million ahead but called it “a timing thing.”

He then noted that the county should begin looking into putting some of those extra clams into its health insurance reserves.

The county is self-insured and has roughly $24 million in annual health insurances expenses, or roughly $2 million a month. However, he said, the county has only $500K in reserves dedicated to the fund.

“That's less than one week of claims, and so what you will see me do or beg of you to do is put as much as we can into it,” Caldwell said. “I would put a sizable amount of the surplus into the reserves – $3 million to $4 million at least.

He said the City of Knoxville, which is also self-insured, has a $13 million health insurance reserve fund.

However, he didn't say that the county right now has an overall record-freakin'-high $46.8 million in overall unallocated reserves right now – much, much, much, much higher than the city's overall reserve fund, which I'm still trying to nail down the exact amount.

Anyhoo, more fun stuff to come today. Commission meets.

Heh.

UPDATE: The city's unallocated reserves are at about $18.4 million.