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Butler County adopts 2026 budget, approves fire and sewer district levies
Summary
The Butler County Commission adopted the county'wide 2026 budget, including mill-levy adjustments and separate budgets for multiple fire and sewer districts; commissioners discussed fire station needs in several districts during the meeting.
Butler County commissioners on Thursday adopted the county'wide proposed budget for 2026, approving a 0.25 mill reduction in the county levy and signing separate budgets for multiple fire and sewer districts. Ryan Atkinson, the county's finance director and assistant county administrator, presented the final proposal and stood by for questions before the vote.
Atkinson said the proposed budget "reduces the levy by 0.25 mills" and continues to prioritize roads and bridges, emergency medical services, the sheriff's office, the jail and 9-1-1 services. He told the commission the budget also includes measures intended to make the county more competitive as an employer and reduces overall employee count.
The commission approved the county budget by motion (moved by Commissioner Wazak; second by Commissioner Murphy) and later approved the 2026 budgets for Butler County fire districts and sewer districts (motion by Commissioner Herzet; second by Commissioner Masterson). Staff told commissioners the only substantive change from the proposed budget affected the Towanda Fire District, whose levy was reduced from 7.5 to 6 mills to reflect changes linked to a proposed building project.
During budget discussion commissioners and staff spent substantial time on needs and options for local fire stations. Commissioners and staff cautioned against immediately approving large new facilities and encouraged preliminary design work and phased, expandable approaches. Commissioners noted examples of lower-cost, pre-engineered or volunteer-built stations in other communities and urged the districts to prepare needs assessments before pursuing major construction.
Atkinson and public-works staff said the county will pursue requests for proposals for preliminary design work and emphasized that any new station should be sized to be expandable. Commissioners discussed debt-service capacity and cited a prior county project that cost about $2 million with added facilities that raised the final cost.
The commission also approved vouchers totaling $1,901,376.34. No additional public-comment items altered the budget actions at the meeting.
The budget actions were recorded as formal motions and approved by the commission during the meeting.
