Some Richmond Common Council members pushed back against the 2026 budget, which is funded but not balanced, when it was presented Sept. 29 for first hearing.

Mayor Ron Oler said that about $3 million budgeted for this year will not be spent, and that surplus will cover a $2,344,000 shortfall in the 2026 general fund. Oler, who campaigned for office in 2023 with the slogan “safe streets, balanced budgets,” said negotiated union wages will cost $2,482,000 more in 2026 than in 2025, causing the budget not to be balanced.

Oler also shared 2026 revenue news. He’s been told the local option highway user taxes implemented by Wayne County Council for 2026, also known as a wheel tax, will provide the city $680,000, and Oler said fire contracts with Wayne Township and Spring Grove will provide about $95,000 more than this year. Those revenues will now be added to the budget. 

One unknown for 2026, he said, is the city’s share of state cigarette taxes, which were raised by $2 per pack beginning July 1. The state collected $50 million in August, compared with $18 million in August 2024, Oler said, promising another revenue increase in 2026, but one that won’t be budgeted.

Council member Justin Burkhardt, the chair of council’s finance committee, pointed out that council was hearing different numbers than the week previous when it met as the Committee of the Whole for three nights of budget presentations. Council then had to schedule the Sept. 29 special meeting to receive the budget ordinance, five ordinances establishing 2026 employee wages and five ordinances transferring or appropriating money to cover this year’s expenses.

“These are taxpayer dollars, and how can we vote on a budget that’s unbalanced when we’re shooting at a moving target? I think that’s unresponsible,” Burkhardt said, later adding, “I personally can’t vote for a budget that is utilizing this kind of math.”

The advertised budget is $65,084,602, including $27,706,236 in the general fund. Budget information is available on the Department of Local Government Finance website at wwn.to/richmondbudget26. The budget’s public hearing is scheduled for 7 p.m. Oct. 6, with budget adoption scheduled for 7 p.m. Oct. 20. The budget must be adopted prior to Nov. 1.

Controller Tracy McGinnis said revenue cuts implemented by the state legislature make a balanced budget impossible without a reduction in payroll.

She and Sharry Hemingway, the city’s payroll and benefits administrator, also tried to explain to council members the planned reallocation of property tax levy money. The city has a maximum levy of $25,230,500 for 2026 that it allocates to seven funds. The plan is to reduce allocations to the 1925 police officer pension fund and the 1937 firefighter pension fund by $150,000 each and provide an additional $300,000 to the parks budget.

Those pension funds are for police officers and firefighters hired before 1977 and their widows. Hemingway said the funds are healthy enough to handle the reallocation and still cover monthly payments to pensioners and widows.

“All expenses that are in that fund are budgeted to ensure that the pensioners and widows will receive full payments each month,” Hemingway said. “It’s budgeted fully for each member, so there’s not going to be any shorting there.”

The number of pensioners and widows in those funds will continue to decrease until the funds disappear altogether. For police officers and firefighters hired after 1977, pension money is put into line items in the police and fire budgets. The city will put $500,000 into those accounts next year. 

Burkhardt and council member Jerry Purcell said they would prefer the $300,000 go toward paying current police officers and firefighters.

“If we’re going to maintain police and firefighters, we’re seriously going to have to look at their pay scales,” Purcell said. “We’re losing a lot to other departments, et cetera, after spending a fortune training them.”

In addition, Purcell said he would prefer the 2025 budget surplus pay toward the city’s bond debt, rather than apply it to the 2026 budget. He also said he would not vote for a budget that’s not balanced.

“We will have a steady cash flow and a higher tax income to where we can balance our budget, but we’re never going to get there if we keep robbing Peter to pay Paul,” Purcell said about paying down debt.

Council member Lucinda Wright wondered how the city could ever balance a budget.

“We need to get a way that we can be better stewards of the funding that we have and be able to balance the budget rather than just it being funded using some money that was thrown here and there, which we didn’t realize we were going to get,” she said.

For this year, $188,922 was found in bits and pieces of money that will not be spent as budgeted. A transfer ordinance presented Sept. 29 would use that money to help pay wages in finance, IT, law and police departments. Another $400,000 would transfer from the EMS fund’s line item for other equipment to pay for EMS overtime.

Other ordinances are for additional appropriations this year. Opioid funding the city has received from the state’s settlements with opioid manufacturers and distributors would pay for police salaries ($261,078) and overtime ($315,000) used on drug-related matters. One ordinance includes appropriations of $250,000 for EMS salaries and $400,000 for EMS overtime, while another ordinance calls for the appropriation of $200,000 to pay for streetlight electricity and $100,000 for investigator wages.

That’s $1,526,078 that would be appropriated beyond this year’s budget if approved by council.

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A version of this article appeared in the October 8 2025 print edition of the Western Wayne News.

Mike Emery is a reporter and layout editor for the Western Wayne News.