Larimer County manager: draft 2026 budget to be published by statutory deadline; work session scheduled

Larimer County’s draft 2026 budget will be published by the statutory deadline, county manager Lorinda Volker told commissioners at the Oct. 14 administrative meeting.

Volker thanked department directors and the county budget team — specifically naming Matthew Bahunan (budget team lead), Alex Jordan (budget analyst) and Josh Fudge (performance budget and strategy director) — for their work preparing the budget for publication. She said the budget would be published on larimer.gov and staff planned a televised work session next week to present highlights and answer questions.

Commissioner John Kefalas asked for confirmation that the draft budget would be available to the public “as of tomorrow”; Volker replied, “Tomorrow. Yep. Hopefully, today, but, certainly by tomorrow. Tomorrow is the deadline.” She said the public could access the budget via the county website by navigating to the budget page.

Why it matters: Publication of the draft budget begins the formal public review process; the televised work session and posted documents give residents and stakeholders the opportunity to review proposed spending and revenue assumptions before final adoption.

Ending: Staff asked the public to engage with the posted materials and contact county staff with questions; the board scheduled a work session next week to walk through the document in more detail.