Following a new policy adopted in March 2012 that allowed county departments to roll over unspent money, the ending cash balance in the general fund increased to $240 million—or 18 percent of the total expenditure budget—in 2012, said Bill Jackson, county budget officer and executive director of the budget management department.

"Each and every department is coming in under budget this year," he said. "In past years, we've had as much as $40–$50 million that had to be borrowed from reserves. So that policy giving the departments that flexibility has helped out tremendously."

The proposed budget listed allocations from the county's general fund for the 2013–14 fiscal year.

Budget management proposed more than $1.13 billion in allocations from the general fund—an increase over last year's estimated $1.08 billion. Since the allocations budget for 2012–13 was approved at more than $1.11 billion, the county will start this year with more than $34 million in reserves from the general fund. This year, the proposed general fund total is more than $1.5 billion.