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Perry County begins budget work session as staff reconcile conflicting revenue estimates
Summary
County staff said updated revenue estimates and a reclassification of interest income narrowed available general-fund revenue, raising the cut the county must make; commissioners set a conservative 2026 wage starting point and agreed to multiple first-pass cuts as staff produce reconciled forms.
Perry County commissioners and staff met in a multi-hour budget work session to reconcile differing revenue estimates and begin reducing the county's proposed 2026 spending. Staff told the panel that a reclassification of investment interest and updated figures from the Department of Local Government Finance (DLGF) reduced general-fund revenue and increased the county’s required cuts.
The meeting began with a question from Speaker 3 about the final size of required reductions. Speaker 4 (staff) explained that initial budget books prepared with Baker Tilly’s numbers included about $488,000 of estimated investment/interest in the general fund; after council members approved a new ordinance to move interest into a separate fund and after DLGF updates, general-fund revenue fell and the necessary general-fund cuts rose from roughly $1.7 million to about $2.2 million. “When Baker Tilly did that, they had 488 estimated miscellaneous income for investment in there,” Speaker 4 said during the explanation.
Because the revenue picture changed repeatedly as staff received new data, commissioners agreed to treat the auditor/staff’s reconciled numbers as the working baseline. To provide a conservative starting place for spending decisions, the group also agreed to set 2026 starting-point wages at 2024 ending wages — effectively removing last year’s one-time 5% stipend from the baseline. Using that wage baseline, staff calculated an initial gap of $342,195.57 if all requested wage increases remain on hold.
Why it matters: the county must advertise a levy and produce fund-level worksheets that reconcile with DLGF and Gateway submissions. Staff warned that numbers can and will change between this first work session and the final budget, but the county’s decision to remove one-time stipends from the starting point and to use the auditor’s reconciled revenue figures narrows the options available to restore spending without raising taxes.
Next steps: staff will reprint and circulate the updated Gateway forms and Baker Tilly reconciliations. Commissioners directed staff to continue working through fund-by-fund expenditures and to prepare further rounds of reductions and alternative scenarios for follow-up days of the work session.
