CACHE VALLEY – County Executive George Daines delivered a fine-tuned lecture on Oct. 14 to members of Cache County Council about budget realities.

With the matter-of-fact precision of a banker, Daines explained why Cache County is facing a budget crisis and ways to get out of it.

The bottom line, he said, is that the county’s expenditures since 2019 have grown by 76 percent while its revenue growth has failed to keep pace, resulting in a projected $7.6 million deficit for 2026.

Those expenditures have also outpaced inflation since 2019, which stands at about 26 percent, and the county's population growth of 11.5 percent.

To make matters worse, he said, the county has allowed its millage levy to drop by 32 percent since 2019.

A millage levy, or millage rate, is the tax rate used to cal

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