San Juan County’s financial team nearly hit the bull’s eye in 2008.

In fact, the county had roughly $15,000 more cash-on-hand at the end of the year than anticipated in last year’s budget. The county, according to the auditor’s fourth-quarter financial review, presented last week to the County Council, collected 100 percent of the revenue expected in 2008 and spent only 94.5 percent of its budgeted expenses.

Still, Auditor Milene Henley warns that a repeat performance could be difficult to achieve. Key local economic indicators were headed downward at the end of the last year and at this time few, if any, signs would suggest an early rebound, she said.

Topping the list, Henley said, are declines in home sales, construction, investment earnings and applications for building permits. The county collected nearly $155,000 more in building and land-use permit fees than anticipated in 2008, exceeding the budgeted mark by almost 13 percent; however, the newly instituted plan-review fees account for 40 percent of the $1.3 million generated by such permits.

“That’s money that’s partly applicable to 2009,” she noted.

And another, perhaps costly, shoe has yet to drop. The county and members of Local 1849, the single-largest labor union in the islands, have yet to come to terms on a new collective bargaining agreement. A previous three-year contract expired Dec. 31 and negotiations have been underway on a new agreement since late October. The union represents roughly 170 county employees.

Though a contract remains unsettled, the county afforded its union and non-union employees a two-percent cost-of-living increase in 2009. That amounts to a boost in payroll over last year of $165,000 for union workers and $78,000 boost for non-represented employees.