Warren County is projecting a break even budget for 2025 as the year draws to close.
“This is the first year in the last three that we haven’t had to use our savings to cover operations,” Commissioner Tricia Durbin said during last Wednesday's meeting. “As a result of the changes we made, the knobs we turned, we believe we’ll actually break even” in 2025.
The county has experienced deficits the last two years of $2.4 million and $1.6 million.
“We are very concerned about making sure we are taking those taxpayer dollars and stretching them as far as we can,” Durbin added, while providing the services the county is required to provide.
The commissioners also selected the bank to provide the county’s 2026 tax anticipation note during the meeting.
That note - the TAN - is bridge funding designed to cover operations until property tax revenue comes in.
Bret Bailie, the county’s director of finance, said the interest rates for the TAN were “very competitive out there in the market.”
But “we don’t anticipate having to use this” in 2026, he added.
If successful, that would make 2026 the first year the county has not utilized the bridge funding in many years.
“It’s been a successful year,” Durbin reiterated. “We moved the needle. We were not expecting to do as well as we have.
“A lot of good things have happened in the county.”
Turnout high in Nov. election
Elections Director Margia Hansen said that turnout was almost 43 percent in this month’s municipal general election.
Hansen said the last time turnout was that high in a municipal general election was 2005.
Letters were sent last week, she added, to over 200 people who won election to offices based on the write-in vote totals.
Video of the meeting can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn0NADMVqYM.