“The one thing I want to continue to caution, as I’ve done pretty much every year, is our expenditures continue to outpace our revenues. We have an approximately $8 million gap, which will be covered by our carryover balance, but that’s something to keep in mind that we need to monitor that,” said County Administrator Jenny Hutchinson.
The county projects general fund revenues to increase by over $2 million, or 4.1%, in 2026 to $52.8 million, which Hutchinson said compares to the $50.7 million that was approved for 2025, while expenditures are projected to increase by $3.2 million, or 5.6%, to $60.6 million (compared to $57.3 in 2025).
The revenues and expenditures leave about a $7.8 million deficit, but Hutchinson said the estimated carryover is $9.4 million, leaving the projected year-end balance for 2026 at $1.5 million.
Hutchinson said they have about $12.5 million in reserves, which is a contingency fund that pays for things they can’t plan for and not to be used to supplement.
Revenues and expenditures
Revenues are heavily based on sales tax, Hutchinson said, which is forecasted to increase $1.2 million, or 3.9%, to $33.3 million, compared to $32 million in 2025.
“The reason why we’re so conservative is because there’s a lot of changes going on, on the federal level that we don’t know how that’s going to affect the county, including the (Haitian) temporary protective status status that may or may not be up ... If that does go through, that will have a serious impact on our sales tax. Some other changes are grant funds that have been typically funded by the federal government,” she said.
As for property tax revenues, the county still waiting for data from the re-appraisal done by the auditor’s office, but it is projected to be about $5.4 million.
Hutchinson said other revenue (charges for services, such as state reimbursement for public defenders) are projected to increase close to $760,000, or 8.2%, to $10 million, compared to $9.2 million in 2025.
“I really looked at that this year because that’s one area where I feel we’ve been kind of underestimating it. I went through and did an analysis based on what we’ve experienced in the past. It’s still a conservative number, but I think it’s a more realistic number than (what) we budgeted last year,” she said.
There will be a flat $2 million estimate for investment revenues every year for operation because it’s “very volatile and depends on the market,” but the actual estimate is about $6 million, Hutchinson said. They will put the $2 million in for operations and anything above that. The other $4 million in available funds will be used for one-time capital expenses so they’re “not becoming reliant on investment income.”
Hutchinson said once you add in the $52.8 million revenues, $4 million additional investment revenue and $60.6 million expenditures, there is $4.1 million in available funds to use for the supplemental ($1.3 million), capital ($5 million) and other ($851,000) requests.
However, the total requests amount is $7.2 million, so Hutchinson said they’re going to be “having some discussions that we need to make” during January on what those are.
“We’ve been doing a really good job of trying to get revenues to match expenditures,” she said. “This year was a little bit more challenging because of some of the unknowns that we’re facing, so then we are relying on our carryover.”
The general fund covers public safety, public works, courts/judicial, and general administrative costs. Special revenue funds include areas such as the jail, maintenance and housing, capital project funds, and enterprise funds such as water and sewer.
The expenditures increase includes a 2.5% personnel increase, a 2% non-personnel increase, which is something they did different this year by adding in the cost of living increase to the temporary budget, a 6% health insurance increase, and it doesn’t include capital or other funding requests. Hutchinson said she also figured it includes about a 3% increase for most county departments.
The largest general fund expenditure for the county is the sheriff’s office at $22.1 million. The various court, prosecutor and public defender expenses combined were at about $13.5 million.
The county will discuss proposed water and sewer rate increases at its Jan. 14 meeting, which Hutchinson said is something they do every year to avoid the spikes.
Planning for budgets
Hutchinson said when planning for the budget, the county tries to keep its strategic plan in mind, with goals to increase population to create a stable tax base to support infrastructure, provide opportunities for people and families, and to reduce bureaucratic red tape.
To give some background on when the budget process starts and works, Hutchinson said in October, she sends out a memo to all directors and elected officials in the county, giving them guidelines or parameters for the expectation for the budget.
“We do have limited dollars, so we have to keep that in mind when we plan for next year, so that kind of helps them with those guidelines,” she said.
Then they set up budget meetings around November that take the entire month to go through with every elected official, office or board and go over their plans for next year, especially with the general fund, which is “one that we have to monitor closely because it is a limited resource and revenue,” Hutchinson said. Special revenue funds are dictated by what they’re established for so they are easier to budget.
Hutchinson then takes all the information, goes through it, meets with commissioners individually to go over what they have, and if no changes, formally approve the next year’s budget.
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