When you need more money than you have, what do you do?
Wayne County Council began trying to answer that question for the 2026 budgeting process in earnest on July 16, spending about 5 1/2 hours listening to departmental budget proposals.
A lot of work and many difficult decisions remain prior to budget adoption late this fall.
About $89,000 was whittled from proposals during the marathon session, but that still leaves requests totaling $39,287,673 in the general fund, just less than a million dollars more than the adopted 2025 general fund budget of $38,400,432.
“That’s still a lot of money when we’re going to lose a million-and-a-half,” said council member Beth Leisure, chair of council’s finance committee.
Current best estimates indicate property tax reform during the 2025 state legislative session will cost Wayne County about $1.4 million in 2026 revenue, Leisure said. The Department of Local Government Finance is still translating the legislation into policy, so there’s no accurate information available for counties and municipalities beginning their budgeting.
“It’s really put us in a bad spot, the whole property tax thing and all the legislation,” Leisure said. “They want us to raise taxes in our county taxes to make up for this stuff, and we don’t want to raise taxes on people. It puts us in a really hard spot.”
Council asked departments to cut 5% from their budgets before submitting their proposals. Although that didn’t happen, some departments sliced a few thousand dollars here and there. The problem is that departments are impacted by increases in rates, dues, utilities, contracts and supply costs; plus, some expenses and projects are unavoidable or necessary.
For example, council had previously heard from Sheriff Randy Retter and Matthew Cain, director of the Emergency Management Agency and Emergency Communications. Both had necessary expenses driving up their budgets. A new contract with Quality Correctional Care to provide healthcare to jail inmates will cost the county $1,003,650.09, about $138,000 more than during 2025. Cain’s budget must pay $100,200 to lease tower space for new emergency communications equipment.
Another example from July 16 is in the election board’s budget. Without an election this year, the budget was $31,500; however, next year’s budget request jumps to $176,700 because there will be 2026 elections. In the GIS budget, an upgrade to Parcel Builder software that’s the basis for the county GIS system will cost $90,000 next year. That’s $20,000 more than the software cost in 2025.
Craig Eason, the county’s IT director, presented several projects council supports that increase his budget. The county’s Microsoft software package requires a licensing change that creates a $24,100 increase, and a cybersecurity package costing $66,500 is a $6,500 increase.
Max Smith, the council president, said during Eason’s presentation that cybersecurity needs are extremely important because any security breach would cost the county far more than the proposed cost increase.
Council also gave Eason permission to proceed with transitioning the county’s phone system to voice over internet protocol. A recent cabling project prepared county buildings with necessary wiring. Phasing in the new system costs $550 per month for every 30 lines.
Among other requests, Coroner Brent Meadows budgeted his position as full time, rather than part time. That increased his pay from $29,841 to $87,765. Meadows’ predecessor, Kevin Fouche, was denied when he requested council make the coroner a full-time position.
“It truly is a full-time job,” Meadows said, noting the office handled 250 deaths in the first six months.
He also requested pay increases for his chief deputy and the five other deputies.
Meadows’ proposal also includes a new vehicle, new power cot and new four-bay cooler totaling $138,000. Any of those purchases, however, would likely be covered by council’s one-time expenditures money, rather than his budget.
Auditor Mark Hoelscher requested a new executive secretary at $56,535. Hoelscher said the auditor’s office is statutorily responsible for commissioners meeting minutes, contracts and legal advertising that is now handled through the commissioners’ office.
Leisure said council will proceed by evaluating positions that are not needed or have not been filled, such as a clerk’s deputy spot that’s been open since 2019 but remains in the budget.
“It might come down to cutting some of the hard things, like ‘I know you want this, but you just can’t have it,’” Leisure said.
Council also has not considered employee raises, yet. That generally comes at the end of the process when council sees how much budget room it can create. Each 1% across-the-board raise costs more than $200,000. In this year’s budget, council provided employees a longevity payment they’ll receive in November, and Leisure said council plans to continue that in the new budget.
In recent years, council has bumped employee pay in response to evaluations by consultant Waggoner Irwin Scheele & Associates of Muncie and has implemented across-the-board raises. The consultant evaluates the county’s pay compared with other entities every two years. This is a year with no evaluation.
“If we don’t stay up with the pace, it will come around to catch us the next year,” Leisure said. “It is a priority to have a raise.”
A version of this article appeared in the July 23 2025 print edition of the Western Wayne News.