This case is about St. Louis County, which is in Northern Minnesota and includes Duluth. You are going to use 2023 budget numbers and 2021 CAFR numbers. If you get lost, you can always to go back to their main page (https://www.stlouiscountymn.gov )  and then go into departments, choose administration, then Operations & Budgets, and you'll see some Finacial links.  Choose Financial Highlights, and there are two docs there - one for the 2021 CAFR and one for a more friendly version called the Annual Popular CAFR. You'll see many differences between the presentations of the numbers in these two reports, mostly because the popular report is for citizens with no accounting degree - very helpful!

 

1. Find their CAFR for 2021, in a link under Financial Highlights. Management's Discussion and Analysis. What was their largest source of revenues for governmental activities for 2021? Find their Statement of Revenues, Expenditures, and Changes in Fund Balance, and the reconciliation statements as well (printed pages 30 and 32.)  Comment on two of the items that needed reconciliation and say why they needed reconciliation

 

2. Next, go to their budget docs, which can be found here: Budget & Capital Improvement Plan (stlouiscountymn.gov)  What is their total budget proposed for 2023? What was their largest category which they want to spend money on?  Comment about the size of the county budget - are you surprised, or is this about what you expected?

 

3. Go to the area of the budget that describes the levies.  How much are they proposing to levy?  How would you explain to citizens that this is a necessary levy increase?  If you don't believe it is necessary, why not?

 

4. Go to the link for the public health department:

https://www.stlouiscountymn.gov/departments-a-z/public-health-human-services

What is the mission of the St. Louis County Public Health Department?  Highlight one of their programs for your colleagues, and also describe the budget of the program.  In your opinion has that program met its mission?

 

5.  Find your own local county health department website, or another county website if you don't have a website for your local county.  How would you compare their budget to St. Louis County's budget?  If you live in St. Louis County, then find a different county health department to compare to St. Louis County for this question. 

What were the greatest differences?