During the Nov. 1 Elma City Council meeting, the council held the final hearing for the 2026 budget, which was later passed unanimously.

The first public hearing for the budget was held on Nov. 3, and before opening the final public hearing for the 2026 budget, Mayor Josh Collette offered a brief statement regarding the $11.9 million 2026 budget.

“Last week, the council and I had a work session where we made some modifications to the budget,” said Mayor Collette. “The budget we’re bringing forward does not include a provision for a B&O tax at this time, and we also went through and identified areas to cut.”

During the discussion period preceding approving the budget, councilors expressed appreciation for Clerk-Treasurer Amy Durga for her work into preparing the budget.

“She has put in so much work on this budget and just making sure that we had all the materials that we needed to be able to go through this efficiently,” said Councilor Jacob Borden. “This would have been a much, much longer and more painful conversation if Amy wasn’t around.”

“Not only did Amy sit through council work sessions, but she painfully sat through meetings with Jacob and I, as a finance committee, to kind of muddle our way through this as we try to build a budget that, in particular after the police levy failed, would be good balance and continue to deliver services,” added Councilor Mike Cooper.

Cooper elaborated on highlights from the budget, which included saving $200,000 in the general fund through postponing the street lighting project, and ordering one police car instead of two. The public safety tax, passed during the Oct. 6 council meeting, did help balance the budget. Improvements in the park and downtown street lighting will be funded by the real estate excise tax and lodging tax. Other expenditures being funded include an updated sewer facility plan, painting of the senior center, and purchasing a standby generator for the 11th Street pump station.

The budget includes several equipment line items, such as wheeled excavator and a truck, however, this equipment will require a vote by the council prior to purchasing.

Cooper shared a concern regarding the cash balances.

“We’re healthy, but each year we spend into our ending cash balance a little bit. … Sometime in 2026, we’re going to need to take, as a council, a serious look at additional revenue, whether that’s B&O tax, revised, or some other source of revenue before we pass our 2027 budget.”

Other revenue items discussed included postponing the second reading of the B&O tax until the first council meeting in February.

“We’re really trying to listen to the community as much as possible, but we are in a position where we have that hard choice of we need revenue or we are cutting things,” Councilor Borden said. “And we’ve already seen at this last budget work session, when we had to cut things and that’s not going to be the last time that we have to cut things over in 2026 if we don’t fix our revenue issues.”