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Commissioners set budget calendar and debate cuts, raises and local income tax options
Summary
Starke County commissioners adopted a budget schedule (workshop July 28; hearing Aug. 17; adoption Sept. 14) and discussed a predicted ~10% state funding cut, possible caps on employee raises, departmental cuts, and whether to shift ceded funds into a local income tax (LIT) to protect services.
The Starke County Board of Commissioners set its budget calendar and spent extended time debating how to respond to an anticipated roughly 10% cut in state funding.
Commissioners voted to hold a budget workshop on July 28, a public hearing on Aug. 17, and adopt the budget on Sept. 14. During discussion, several commissioners urged departments to identify cuts and look for ways to keep a modest employee raise (3% typical) while trimming other expenditures. One commissioner proposed a three-way split of shortfalls among departmental cuts, solar funds, and ceded funds; others urged revisiting retirement actuary assumptions and seeking efficiencies in departmental budgets.
Members also discussed a possible local income tax (LIT) as a mechanism to shift revenue (not increase overall taxpayer burden) by lowering ceded property-tax distributions and recompiling receipts as income-tax allocations for county priorities—an approach some commissioners said they could support only if it produced a strict offset so taxpayers would not see a net increase. No formal decision on a LIT was made; commissioners asked staff to prepare options and encouraged departments to pursue feasible cuts and document potential impacts ahead of the workshop.
The board emphasized protecting high-priority services for vulnerable residents while balancing fiscal constraints and agreed to follow up with more detailed options in the budget workshop.
