{"id":18834,"date":"2024-08-26T08:48:18","date_gmt":"2024-08-26T12:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=18834"},"modified":"2024-08-26T08:48:22","modified_gmt":"2024-08-26T12:48:22","slug":"decatur-officials-look-ahead-to-25-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/26\/decatur-officials-look-ahead-to-25-budget\/","title":{"rendered":"Decatur officials look ahead to &#8217;25 budget"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By BOB SHRALUKA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Decatur City Council, Mayor Dan Rickord and Clerk-Treasurer Kevin Hackman began taking a hard look ahead last week, spending an hour and 18 minutes talking about the 2025 budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They gathered for a regular council meeting which had to be postponed two nights due to scheduling conflicts for a couple of officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In fact, the mayor spent nearly four hours on the road to make the meeting, having been attending an annual mayor&#8217;s conference in Madison, on the Ohio River, a stone&#8217;s throw from Kentucky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hackman was leading the discussion for the first time, having replaced longtime clerk-treasurer Phyllis Whitright at the start of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"341\" height=\"384\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/1E205673CDC949B3985ADB20C0A3E669.jpg?resize=341%2C384&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18835\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/1E205673CDC949B3985ADB20C0A3E669.jpg?w=341&amp;ssl=1 341w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/1E205673CDC949B3985ADB20C0A3E669.jpg?resize=266%2C300&amp;ssl=1 266w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 341px) 100vw, 341px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Kevin Hackman discusses the ins and outs of the 2025 budget for the City of Decatur. (Photo by Bob Shraluka)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The city officials looked at all aspects of the proposed budget for 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hackman said under that proposal, the general fund would increase just $375,000, or 5.8%, over the 2024 budget of $6,439,520.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The total budget number is up a mere $5,000, or 0.3%, over the current budget of $13,514.859.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hackman said the tiny increase is due to the city&#8217;s remaining ARPA funds of nearly $700,000 being placed in 2024&#8217;s budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Those American Rescue Plan Act monies, which came from the federal government after the pandemic, have to be allocated by 2024 and spent by 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A large portion of Thursday&#8217;s budget talks was spent talking with Police Chief Kevin Gerber, mainly about how to in the future to fund body cameras for the officers and the need for more officers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gerber, Operations Manager Jeremy Gilbert, and Building\/Zoning Chief Curt Witte spent time before council, discussing their budget numbers and future needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fire Chief Jeff Sheets was unable to attend, but Hackman presented his budget figures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mayor Rickord spoke briefly earlier in the meeting about something which has city officials all across Indiana concerned: a desire in the Indiana Legislature to cut or eliminate property taxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Such a loss in revenue could prove to be a major blow to many municipalities, possibly forcing the elimination of some services as well as cuts in city jobs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By BOB SHRALUKA WZBD.com Decatur City Council, Mayor Dan Rickord and Clerk-Treasurer Kevin Hackman began taking a hard<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18835,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[14,15,21],"class_list":["post-18834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-decatur","tag-featured","tag-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/1E205673CDC949B3985ADB20C0A3E669.jpg?fit=341%2C384&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}