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Boone County Council considers $500,000 allocation for volunteer fire departments, tables new facilities supervisor and approves $2M rainy‑day transfer
Summary
At its April 14 meeting, the Boone County Council reviewed Baker Tilly scenarios for diverting part of the county local income tax to volunteer fire departments (one option would allocate $500,000 with no tax-rate increase), tabled a request to create an operations supervisor in Facilities, appointed a Witham advisory committee to review a hospital merger, and voted to move $2 million into the county rainy‑day fund.
The Boone County Council on April 14 heard options from the county’s financial consultant about changing how local income tax (LIT) revenue is distributed so volunteer fire departments would receive a dedicated allocation, and took several budget and staffing steps ahead of the summer budget cycle.
Baker Tilly presented three scenarios for LIT distribution. Under the first — which would keep the current LIT rate — the volunteer fire departments would receive $500,000 but other units would see slightly smaller allocations. Alternative scenarios would increase the LIT rate by 0.01 or 0.05 to preserve larger distributions to other units. County staff and council members noted the statutory and procedural steps required before a change could take effect: each volunteer department must submit a written request to all municipal units in the county, the county’s income-tax council must meet and approve the distribution, and deadlines tied to the process mean paperwork must be filed by July 1 for an ordinance adoption deadline of Oct. 31 to take effect Jan. 1, 2027.
“We’ve received scenarios that show the $500,000 allocation looks reasonable in terms of how we might be able to get there,” a council member said during the discussion. Council members emphasized the next step is for volunteer departments to make the formal written request and for staff to confirm the precise statutory deadlines and voting thresholds before any ordinance is introduced.
In facilities business, the facilities director requested creation of a new operations‑supervisor position to provide hands‑on supervision and to ease…
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