Tuesday, December 2, 2025–8:55 a.m.
-David Crowder, WRGA News-
The Floyd County Commission held its first public hearing regarding the fiscal year 2026 budget on Monday night.
According to Floyd County Manager Jamie McCord, work on the budget began in August. Since November, there have been three budget work sessions as well as meetings with individual commissioners.
“We have estimated revenues of $81.49 million for 2026,” he said. “That is with a proposed growth in the digest estimated at five percent, and a 2.3 percent growth in our sales tax, which are our two largest sources of revenue. I think both of those are adequate. I don’t think they are aggressive or conservative. I feel like they are in the middle.”
On the expenditure side, public safety, which represents a little over 52 percent of the county’s total expenses, is increasing by 3.4 percent. Judicial is seeing a 4.7 percent increase for 2026, and general government is increasing by 8.51 percent.
“Transfers out are at $6,054,000 for the year, and prior to our work session, we had a deficit of $29 575,” McCord said. “As I mentioned in our work session, we have been talking and making some additional changes. The board of commissioners recommended some additional changes for us to put into the budget, and hopefully, we will be balanced or net positive going into next week.”
The fire fund is also at a deficit, and according to McCord, they may have to look at a potential millage rate increase for 2026. There are total revenues of $11.3 million and total expenditures of almost $11.9.
“Obviously, that math does not work on a continuing basis, but we were able to transfer a fund balance to cover that,” he added. “The City of Rome had built up a fund balance from savings on capital equipment and deferred retirements.”
County departments put in requests for 26 new positions. All were turned down except for a half position for half a year.
McCord stressed there is still work to be done on the budget. For instance, they did not get to go all the way through the capital budget. Another work session is planned for December 9, which is also when the commission is expected to adopt the budget.