The Augusta-Richmond County Commission spent much of its Nov. 25 session weighing combinations of spending cuts and revenue options to balance a proposed $221.8 million fiscal year 2026 general fund.

Administrator (name not given) reviewed proposed changes that included eliminating a planned 3% cost-of-living adjustment for employees, suggested 30% reductions to discretionary NGO funding, a hiring freeze (3 months proposed, commissioners discussed extending to 6 months to increase savings), and a potential additional 2% across-the-board operating cut. The administrator said the combination of these items, if fully adopted, would leave an approximate $2.7 million surplus to help rebuild fund balance; removing the manufacturing energy excise tax option reduced that cushion by roughly $2 million.

Commissioners pressed staff for detail about several items. Interim finance director Schraer said $309,000 of the additional recommended reductions are operating cuts drawn from department submissions and internal review; no positions were included in that specific operating-cut line. On personnel, housing and community development staff said five positions were proposed cut from that department, two of which are vacant and the net effect is roughly three filled field positions removed.

Transit reductions were discussed in concrete terms: staff said removing one bus from three routes would not eliminate Saturday service or entire routes but would lengthen expected waits — one staff estimate cited a change from about 40 minutes to 80 minutes on affected runs. Commissioners asked for transit to return modeled projections once schedule changes are developed.

Commissioners also discussed short-term rental taxation and hotel-motel tax changes. Angie Cox and administration staff said short-term rentals (Airbnb/VRBO), if compliant with registration and tax rules, are included in the hotel/motel tax base and that the recent increase to 8% is projected to bring about $2,000,000 to the general fund; some of that revenue is earmarked to the Coliseum/James Brown Arena and Destination Augusta.

On the hiring freeze, several commissioners favored extending from three months to six months to increase savings (administration estimated the 6-month option could yield roughly $1 million additional savings); concerns were raised about succession planning and the inability to fill mission-critical leadership roles during an extended freeze.

Before moving to executive session for further deliberations, the commission directed staff to focus on the specific items highlighted in the budget packet (those shown in blue) and agreed to return with refined options when the public session resumes.

Next steps: the commission recessed to executive session to continue deliberations; administration and finance were tasked with modeling a 6-month hiring-freeze scenario, updated transit wait-time projections, and precise personnel-impact analyses for any additional percentage cuts.