The Baldwin City Council was presented with over $5.1 million in departmental budget requests during Thursday’s spring retreat, but meeting those requests won’t be easy. The proposed spending plan exceeds the city’s projected revenues by $1.78 million, raising questions about how to balance the 2026 fiscal year budget.
The total budget requests represent a 26.6% increase over last year’s approved general fund budget of $4,074,902 — a budget that was only balanced after a 0.689 millage rate increase.
Woodmaster cautioned that one of the city’s largest revenue streams — property tax — remains uncertain until the final tax digests are received from Banks and Habersham counties.
Another potential but unpredictable revenue boost could come from franchise taxes, particularly due to the recent launch of Precision Digital, a crypto-mining data center that began operations in December. Its heavy power consumption is expected to drive up franchise tax collections, but city officials noted those impacts won’t be known until later in the upcoming budget year.
Three departments drive most of the increase
The majority of the $1.08 million increase over last year’s budget is concentrated in three departments: Administration, Police, and Fire. Together, they account for $1,030,395 of the total increase.
SEE RELATED: Baldwin budget talks: 2026 department requests exceed $5 Million
Police Chief Chris Jones requested a $397,429 increase — a 33.3% jump — largely due to the addition of two new patrol officers. The funding would cover salaries, benefits, vehicles, and equipment.
Interim Fire Chief Ross Jackson requested a $476,144 increase for his department, with $125,134 dedicated to the new fire truck payment. The remainder would help fund three new firefighter positions. Jackson stressed the importance of staffing improvements to the city’s ISO (Insurance Services Office) rating — a factor that can influence property insurance premiums for residents.
He explained that the fire department was close to moving up to an ISO 2 rating during the last audit and the additional personnel would help during the next ISO audit.
The Administration budget saw a $156,822 increase, most of which would fund a new Finance Manager position to support the city’s financial management needs.
Potential solutions
Council member Nancy Lehman responded to our inquiry about potential solutions to the revenue shortfall.
She explained after the budget presentations the council and staff broke up into small groups to discuss possible revenue generation without raising property taxes. The groups also discussed potential cuts to the budget. She said that one group suggested looking at the possible consolidation of the fire department with the county. However, there was no large group discussion about the consolidation.
All of the suggestions from the groups were written down for review for potential cost savings, cuts, or revenue generation.
Lehman said that there were other revenue sources that were identified that reduced the $1.78 million shortfall to $1.3 million.
She said if she remembered correctly, “We sent the budget back to the department heads for them to redo and reduce.” She explained that they were instructed to start from zero and redo their budgets and reduce what they were asking for. “The serious part of it really came in regard to suggesting some of the requests be removed and getting serious about cutting things that would have a real impact on that number,” Lehman said.
Tough decisions ahead
With a $1.3 million shortfall looming, the council and department heads are expected to spend the next couple of months revising requests, identifying potential cuts, and weighing whether another property tax increase would be necessary.
No timeline was announced for when the budget will be finalized for council review. However, with increasing demands on city services and limited revenue certainty, the council members and department heads face a challenging budget process ahead.
Update: Now Habersham was not in attendance after the budget presentations when potential solutions were discussed among the council and department heads. Now Habersham has reached out to city officials for those potential cost saving measures. Once that information is available, the story will be updated.
