Mohave supervisors debate FY26 budget priorities; several call to fund courts and sheriff’s pay increases

Discussion of Mohave County’s FY2026 budget dominated the May 19 meeting as supervisors weighed funding requests from the courts and the sheriff against county finance recommendations aimed at structural balance.

Supervisor Lettman said he supports a hybrid of staff’s Option C that would preserve a structurally balanced approach while adding targeted funding for judicial positions requested by the courts and pay increases for sheriff’s staff. Judge Steven Moss told the board the courts’ workload has grown in both case count and ‘case weight’ — the average time each case consumes — and urged additional judicial resources; he cited national court workload reporting and said a pro‑rata comparison with peer counties supports adding staff.

Sheriff Schuetz (on the phone) emphasized the department’s recruitment and retention challenges and framed his request as necessary to make the sheriff’s office competitive in local labor markets; the sheriff’s FY26 request included salary corrections spread across roughly 90 positions; he said the immediate cost to correct base pay would be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars this fiscal year, with additional annual impacts.

Finance Director Luke Morne reiterated that the staff-recommended Option B reflects a structurally balanced budget in which recurring expenses align with recurring revenues; he noted the recommended package included multiple one‑time and recurring adjustments, and described tradeoffs associated with layering additional recurring costs on top of one‑time balances. Morne said the county had historically been conservative in revenue estimates but also identified several one‑time revenue or reserve sources that could be used for capital projects or short‑term needs rather than ongoing personnel costs.

Board members said they would press for updated budget drafts before the June tentative‑budget vote. Supervisor Lettman asked staff to return a hybrid Option C at the board’s next meeting incorporating the supervisors’ priorities for public-safety pay and court staffing; staff agreed to prepare the hybrid scenario for the June meeting.

Why this matters: Supervisors must adopt a tentative budget in early June that sets a legal spending ceiling for FY26; funding recurring payroll increases from one‑time reserves risks creating a structural deficit in future years but leaving salaries unrevised risks staffing shortfalls in public safety and the courts.

What’s next: Staff will prepare updated budget scenarios reflecting supervisors’ preferences and return them for the June tentative‑budget vote.