Madison County has a new budget.
Two weeks ago, Madison County Supervisors approved the fiscal year 2026 budget, finalizing months of number crunching and line-by-line scrutinizing.
“It was an excruciating budget process this year,” supervisor Jim Jewett said. “There was a 12.1% increase in budget requests, we reduced it down to a 5.4% increase. We beat DOGE hands down [and] cut spending to the bone with a scalpel, not a hatchet.”
Jewett said the board was forced to make some trade-offs and postpone some items, pointing to changes at the state level as creating issues for localities. He said the state has stopped funding one of the county’s school resource officer positions and will likely cease funding all four next year. Funding to schools was also reduced.
“The state government is running huge budget surpluses, but [they] refuse to help localities with that money that was paid in by people who live in the localities,” Jewett said. “We’ve got our back against the wall. We reached the point where we have to increase taxes.”
Despite that, he said while the recent reassessment increased the valuation of properties, tax bills only increased about 4%. Jewett said county departments have worked to keep spending under control and services to citizens are superb.
“We arrived at the best successful outcome we could have had given the circumstances this year,” he said.
Supervisor Jud Buchanan agreed.
“When I first came on board, I thought I would see people sitting on their hands but that’s not the case,” he said. “We have hard working employees doing more with less. I’m new at this, but I’m so impressed with what they’re able to do with what little they have.”
The $70.2 million budget, of which $35.4 million is in the general fund, proposed budget is approximately $2 million higher than the current year’s budget and includes a 3% cost of living adjustment for all employees, plus covering a 3.9% health insurance increase. The budget increases school funding by $678,000 and covers the new $347,000 in annual costs associated with the implementation of the public safety radio system. To help offset increases, $372,000 was cut from the initial operating budget projection. This included removing any new position requests and freezing some vacant positions.
The proposed budget is balanced using $1.4 million in fund balance. The real estate tax rate is also increased by two-cents, from the current equalized rate of $0.49 per $100 of assessed value to $0.51. The increase yields approximately $560,000 in revenue and is also the first increase in the real estate tax rate since 2020.
As presented, the budget also includes changes to several fees. Boarding of animals is increasing from $5 to $10 and adoption fees are increasing from $95 to $100 for dogs and from $75 to $80 for cats. The commercial tipping fee is increasing by $5 to $70 per ton.
“We’re at the base of needs,” board of supervisors chairman Clay Jackson said, noting having to make any additional cuts would likely result in reducing essential services and staff. “We’re as thin as can be with staying with an 18% contingency reserve.”
The county’s financial policies require the state reserve as well as other thresholds.
“Our departments continue to act responsibly and have for years,” Jackson said. “That partnership has allowed us to keep these taxes as low as they are.”
The county’s economic development committee is working to create a broader tax base. A town hall meeting on the group’s progress is being planned for August.
