Wayne County Council approved a 2026 budget that includes padding to ensure they receive as much property tax revenue as possible.
The $43,078,809 in the general fund includes $6 million in council’s one-time expenditures line item, rather than the usual $3 million. Max Smith, council’s president, said he fully expects the state’s Department of Local Government Finance to tell the county it needs to cut the budget, and that cut will come from the one-time fund. For the 2025 budget, the county submitted a budget low enough that it did not receive the maximum amount DLGF would have permitted in its property tax levy.
“Historically, we’ve always known the amount of property taxes we could raise at this point,” Smith said. “But this time, we don’t know. That’s why we’ve got that line item there, just to make sure.”
Council member Misty Hollis questioned including the extra amount. The $43 million general fund is 12% higher than the $38,400,432 council approved last year for 2025.
“This body has been extremely committed and the departments have worked with us to get to a point to have a responsible budget,” Hollis said. “This doesn’t look responsible to me.”
Council member Gary Saunders said he was satisfied with the budget that includes the one-time money placeholder, and he made a motion to approve all of the county’s funds. The motion passed 5-1, with Hollis dissenting.
“I think under the circumstances I feel good about it, because we have done our due diligence to make cuts where needed, and we’ve tried to have a very conservative budget,” Smith said. “The question of not knowing from the state what our income will be has left us with that one line item that’s exceptionally large.”
DLGF sets the allowable budget number once it completes projections for the county’s property and income tax revenues.
“I consider whatever the state comes back and says they approve will be balanced, because there will be the income to support that,” Smith said. “We’re not shifting money around to get it funded.”
Grant requests
Matthew Cain, the county’s director of the Emergency Management Agency and the Emergency Communications Center, received council and commissioners` approval to apply for three grants.
An annual emergency management performance grant pays $44,827.63 toward EMA salaries. The money comes from Federal Emergency Management Agency through Indiana Homeland Security.
A second $9,800 hazardous materials emergency management grant would pay for a vendor to complete a commodities study that will identify hazardous materials traveling through Wayne County on highways and rail lines. It also will identify materials stored by local businesses.
A $7,500 sowing enriched and enhanced datasets (SEED) grant would enable the county to hire a vendor that will update GIS data to a format necessary for the next generation of 911 software. Without the grant, the county GIS department would need to perform the updates.
Other issues
- Council voted unanimously to transfer $100,000 from its contingency fund to the Superior Court 3 line item for public defenders. The court has already spent $221,239 this year from that line. Adam McQueen, the county’s chief probation officer, said there’s been an increase in appeals of the court’s decisions and the hourly rate for attorneys has increased.
- Mike Sharp, the county highway department supervisor, received three financial commitment letters for applications seeking state Community Crossings funds for paving projects costing about $430,000.
- Council approved the commissioners’ request for $23,000 to have LWC Inc. prepare bid documents for the driveway expansion and fencing installation on the courthouse’s west side. Council took the money from its one-time expenditures line item.
A version of this article appeared in the October 22 2025 print edition of the Western Wayne News.