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County approves routine appropriations and schedules October budget vote after airport and solid waste hearings
Summary
Council approved a string of appropriation requests and transfers, heard the Evansville Airport Authority's 2025 budget hearing and the Solid Waste District's 2025 budget (both to be acted on at future October hearings), and approved salary-ordinance amendments to be finalized Oct. 2.
The Vanderburgh County Council on Sept. 4 approved routine appropriation motions, several transfers, and amendments to the salary ordinance while taking public hearings on the Evansville Airport Authority and the Solid Waste District budgets.
Early on the agenda the council approved minutes, personnel requests, and individual appropriation lines including a $35,000 sheriff item ("Grama and Motors"), a $2,063 PERF-related voter-registration settlement, and multiple parks and public-safety line items (Burnett Park extra-help and bonuses totaling roughly $125,000 plus FICA, a $249,094 contractual-services line for the jail care unit, and a $103,500 infrastructure and drainage request from the general fund reserve). All motions on those items were made and approved by voice vote.
Finance Chair James Raven then presented a larger set of proposed cuts and fund shifts as part of the county's budget-change worksheet, which the council moved to approve for further consideration at the October final hearing. Raven said the changes under review represent about $2.2 million in general-fund relief and include the reallocation of roughly $1.0 million in items to other funds.
Nate Hahn, executive director of the Evansville Airport Authority, spoke at a public hearing on the airport's 2025 budget: he highlighted new routes (Orlando, St. Pete year-round, and Chicago with American Airlines), the completion of a parking-lot expansion, construction of a new maintenance facility and a west-side general-aviation terminal/hangar, and higher security and personnel costs. Hahn said some capital work has been funded with prior CARES-era federal funds (he cited roughly $9.4 million in rainy-day/COVID-related funds that have supported one-time projects). He emphasized that the airport would present its budget for formal council action on Oct. 2.
Jean Carlson of the Solid Waste District presented a flat 2025 budget with expenditures of $597,416 and estimated revenue of $470,000; she flagged line-item changes for insurance, salaries and tipping-fee timing and clarified that some tipping-fee figures reflected six-month periods rather than annual totals.
The council approved three pages of amendments to the salary ordinance and — by roll call — set all salary lines (FICA, PERF and insurance) to be finalized at the Oct. 2 final budget hearing.
Next steps: formal votes on the Airport and Solid Waste budgets and the final county budget are scheduled for Oct. 2 per the council calendar.
