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Fort Smith officials see roughly $10 million shortfall in preliminary FY26 general fund review

5778075 · September 11, 2025
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

CFO Andy Richards told the Fort Smith Board of Directors a preliminary FY26 budget shows about a $10 million deficit and a projected 12% fund balance; officials discussed options including cuts, a 10% hiring/holdback and moving River Valley 911 costs to a separate fund.

CFO Andy Richards told the Fort Smith Board of Directors during a special study session that the city’s preliminary fiscal year 2026 general-fund request shows roughly a $10,000,000 shortfall and a projected fund balance of about $7,700,000 (12%).

Richards said the city has been refining department submissions and that the FY25 amended deficit had already been trimmed from about $19.4 million to $17.5 million. He said the FY26 preliminary request still includes all department capital and personnel asks and has not yet been fully reconciled with administration reviews.

The shortfall was…

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