Fayette County approves proposed budget with no tax increase
Fayette County residents will not see a tax hike if the commissioners approve the proposed 2025-26 budget.
Commissioners voted 3-0 in favor of the balanced budget of $54,441,928 at their Thursday meeting. Spending was up 0.14% from 2024-25, or about $75,000.
Chairman Scott Dunn said the minimal jump came despite $1 million in additional health care costs and a $878,000 increase in the match for Children and Youth Services.
The millage rate stayed flat a year after commissioners approved a 1.5-mill increase at a meeting that drew nearly two hours of public comment.
Commissioner Vince Vicites called tax increases a “last resort,” and said the county was able to reduce costs through means such as not replacing departing workers.
“We’ll continue that mindset as we go forward throughout 2026,” he said. “If there’s a way that we can save funding throughout the year through attrition or any other way of cost savings, we’re going to do everything we can to accomplish that.”
On the revenue side, the county entered into a contract with cloud-computing company Neumo to maintain a database of short-term rentals in the county for collecting and registering hotel excise taxes.
“We are aware that some Airbnb-type organizations do not pay their hotel tax,” Dunn said. “This identifies them so we can start collecting the hotel taxes due to Fayette County.”
Commissioners were not sure Thursday if the taxes would be able to be tracked and collected retroactively.
Dunn said 96% of the county’s hotel tax revenues are directed to GO Laurel Highlands, the county’s designated marketing agency. The remaining 4% goes to the county treasurer’s office to cover administrative costs.
The proposed budget will be out for review for 20 days.
Vicites said the board is still making adjustments, particularly on county expenditures.
“Our work is not done yet, but hopefully we’ll have it completed by our next meeting, and we’ll have a good, sound 2026 budget,” he said.