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110 <br /> FISCAL YEAR 2024-25 BUDGET COMMENTARY <br /> The adopted General Fund budget for fiscal year 2024-25 totals $294.4 million, which represents <br /> a $14.9 million or 5.0% increase over the fiscal year 2023-24 adopted budget. The County budget factors <br /> in a 2.81 cent increase from 83.53 cents to 86.34 cents per$100 of assessed value to fund the County and <br /> School continuation budgets. The fiscal year 2024-25 budget assumed a$488 million or 2.3%increase in <br /> the assessed value of real and personal property over the prior year. The real and personal collection rate is <br /> budgeted to remain the same at 99.2%. The County budget assumes a decrease in the allocation of General <br /> Fund revenues to education spending in fiscal year 2024-25 from 48.1% to 46.76%, due to lower debt <br /> service for school projects. The budget increases per pupil expenditures by $320 to $5,666 which has <br /> consistently been among the highest per pupil appropriations in the State. The budget appropriates <br /> approximately $4.0 million to fund school health and safety contractual services. The fiscal year 2024-25 <br /> budget fully funds all positions of the County and includes a 4%wage increase effective July 1,2024 at a <br /> cost of$3.2 million.Property tax revenues comprise approximately$202 million or 61.4%of General Fund <br /> revenues. Sales tax revenues comprises 13.4% of the budget and has been budgeted to remain consistent <br /> with fiscal year 2023-24 projections. The remaining 25.2% of General Fund revenues are comprised of <br /> intergovernmental revenues, charges for services, licenses and permits, and miscellaneous revenues. <br /> CYBERSECURITY <br /> The County, like many other large public and private entities, relies on a large and complex <br /> technology environment to conduct its operations and faces multiple cybersecurity threats involving, but <br /> not limited to, hacking, phishing viruses, malware and other attacks on its computing and other digital <br /> networks and systems (collectively, "Systems Technology"). As a recipient and provider of personal, <br /> private, or sensitive information, the County may be the target of cybersecurity incidents that could result <br /> in adverse consequences to the County and its Systems Technology,requiring a response action to mitigate <br /> the consequences. The County has hired a Security Officer that dual reports to the County Manager and <br /> Chief Investment Officer. The County deploys regular training to all County employees throughout the <br /> year. <br /> Orange County IT takes a multi-layered approach regarding enterprise security and data loss <br /> prevention to protect against internal and external threats. <br /> • Perimeter security is handled by employing state of the art firewall(s), and intrusion detection <br /> and prevention systems as well as email scanning prior to email being delivered to county <br /> servers for processing. <br /> • Multifactor authentication is used for user device access to network resources. <br /> • VPN and virtual desktop technologies are deployed for secure and managed remote access. <br /> • The principal of least privilege access is used for all uses both common and administrative. <br /> • Beyond the perimeter all network traffic is monitored north, south, east and west. Appropriate <br /> alerts are configured for anomalous behavior. <br /> • Network traffic is segmented to prevent the risk of cross contamination during security events. <br /> • Multiple security incident/information and event management strategies are used, i.e., SIEM <br /> technology to monitor server and device events. <br /> 39 <br />