County outlines ~$9.8M in recurring needs, flags law‑enforcement bargaining
County staff identified roughly $9.8 million in ongoing budget needs — including a $5.1M employee cost‑of‑living pool (excl. law enforcement), an anticipated law‑enforcement bargaining item up to $2M, voter system costs, vector control, public defender support and insurance increases.
The full story
Constance told the court that the FY2026 proposed budget includes a series of recurring items that together create an ongoing revenue need of about $9.8 million. "When you total all that up, it comes close to $9,800,000 of additional revenue that we need to come up with," she said. Among the items she listed were a cost‑of‑living increase for all county employees (about $5,100,000, excluding law enforcement), an unsettled collective‑bargaining item for law enforcement that could be as much as $2,000,000, statutory judicial pay increases (~$292,000), continuation pay totaling about $362,000, and inflationary increases for utilities and insurance (~$556,000).
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