Figure 5; Department Expense Growth from 2011 to 2020

How Each Department Grew Relative to Inflation
As shown in Figure 5 above, the vast majority of the expense increases are the result of the large annual increases that have occurred in two areas, Protective Services and Transportation.  The cost of Protective Services has historically been increasing at an average rate of $433 thousand per year and the cost of Transportation has been increasing at $421 thousand per year. These two cost centers alone account for 66% of the total expense increase rate of $1,294,334 per year.

The gray line shown in figure 5 is an indication of how inflation changed during the study period. Trend lines are shown by the dashed lines for each of department. Departments with a slope greater than the gray line are growing at a rate faster than inflation. Departments with a slope that is less than the gray line, such as Government Services are growing at a rate that is less than inflation. We see that in addition to Government Services, Planning and Development and Health Services showed only moderate growth during the study period.