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Lancaster County interim administrator presents FY2026–27 recommended budget including 7% millage estimate
Summary
Interim Administrator Willis and Budget Director Jamie Provoznak presented a recommended FY2026–27 budget balanced on preliminary assumptions, including an estimated 7% increase in the value of one mill (one mill ≈ $641,000) and proposed use of reserves for capital; council asked staff for trimmed expense scenarios and clearer adopted-vs.-recommended comparisons.
Chair called the council to order and introduced Item 9(a), the county administrator’s recommended fiscal-year 2026–27 budget. Interim Administrator Willis and Budget Director Jamie Provoznak presented the recommendation, saying the proposal is a starting point for council decisions rather than a final adopted plan.
"The recommended budget is balanced with increases to county operating, capital improvement, port mandated security, millage rates," Budget Director Jamie Provoznak said during the presentation. He noted staff used a conservative estimate that the value of one mill could increase by about 7% and offered a preliminary value of one mill at roughly $641,000 for working calculations. Provoznak also told council that department-by-department detail appears in packet exhibits and that the administrator’s recommended general fund total is listed at $156.4 million (a decrease from total staff requests).
Several council members pressed staff for clearer revenue assumptions and asked that staff present comparisons to the FY2025–26 adopted budget rather than request-to-recommendation deltas. "We need realistic estimates," one council member said, arguing that citizens deserve clarity about what any millage change would mean for individual taxpayers. Auditor Suzette Murphy flagged that the assessor has not yet completed entering all new building values and that certified mill values will arrive in about two weeks; she said, "the mill value is going to be more than what is projected on this slide."
Staff said the recommended budget currently relies on a mix of projected millage revenue and the use of reserves; Provoznak noted the audited reserve balance from FY2025 was approximately $72 million and that staff proposed applying about $29.3 million of reserves toward capital assets in the recommendation. Council members asked staff to return with trimmed expense scenarios and an operating budget baseline in the $115–120 million range to guide markups at subsequent meetings. The council scheduled follow-up budget work in the Committee of the Whole (May 13) and three ordinance readings and public hearings (first reading May 26, second June 8, third/adoption June 22).
