By DAVID REAGOR 
Los Alamos County Councilor

The FY2024 county budgets are under discussion and a tax increase is under consideration.

The proposal is to increase the GRT by half a percent. This will generate approximately 12 M$ per year. A tax that commences on Jan. 1, 2024 would generate 6 M$ for half of a fiscal year. In the chart below I collected the final actual budget for the last two years.

For the current year only a projected balance is available. I also show the budgeted number for this year and next year. The ending balance is the reserve we maintain in the general fund. All the numbers are in millions of dollars (M$).

Fiscal year                  2021    2022    2023Budget            2023Proj.        2024Budget
GRT collected             56        66        65                          75                    86
Ending Balance          48        60         46                          57                    66

According to the budget documents the ending balance is estimated to be 66M$ for FY2024.

If we do not increase the GRT we still have a revised budgeted ending balance of 60 M$ for FY2024. This is a healthy reserve balance. The GRT taxes and the projected ending balance were about 10 M$ over budget in 2023. In addition, in previous years the LANL GRT component has been well over the budgeted estimates. Even with conservative estimates there is no financial shortfall.

At this time there is no need for a tax increase. There are also some potential spending cuts that should be considered. Contact me at davidreagor@gmail.com if you have any questions or comments.