Planning
Weekly update #345 8/30/2026 to 9/5/2026
Budgets, bonds, and live music are all parts of my week serving as mayor of the best small town in America.
Friday Night Live is a wrap for the 2026 season, and Honey White rocked the Southern Indiana Center for the Arts stage to finish it off. While the temperatures have been unseasonably warm, things like sporting events and live music were pushed later in the evening to avoid being cancelled. If you missed getting a t-shirt, I believe SICA has a few left, and I am sure they would be happy to help you get one of your own if you reach out to them. Thank you to the SICA board for all they do to bring the arts to our community, and thank you to all the musicians during this season.
Three years ago, the city issued a bond to help fund capital purchases in several areas. This week, we started the process to issue a bond later this year for capital purchases over the next three years. We use this approach to keep our debt at the same level over time. While Seymour has used this approach for close to two decades, with the changes from Senate Enrolled Act - 1 in 2025 the amount we can bond is less than the previous ones. For the 2026 bond we will fund the replacement apparatus for Seymour Fire Department’s Engine 1 and three years of police cars scheduled to be replaced from 2027 through 2029. With fire trucks we get around 20 years of life, but police cars are on a ten-year rotation, which allows us to save on repairs towards the end of the cycle, and the auctions bring a little more when sold. I would like to thank all my department heads for the work they do on their capital improvement plans each year even though this round of bonds doesn’t allow much room for anything outside of public safety.
In the last paragraph, I mentioned the capital improvement plans that each department head prepares each January. This is the first step each year to the budget for the following year. After they are submitted and reviewed, we move onto the next phase mid year. The next phase is to see what the first half of the current year looks like spending wise compared to the approved budget and setting what increase department heads need to stay within. For 2026 cost of living raises were set at three percent which was just behind inflation for the same period. I requested that department heads keep material items to a 1.5% increase which was less than half of the inflation rate over that same time. For the 2027 budget, we know we will get behind if we don't stay closer to the 3.36% inflation rate for the last twelve months and allow for a three percent increase on material lines. This all leads us to draft six of the budget where we have checked, adjusted, and reviewed until we are ready to present Budget Form 4 to the state and council. This is our request to the state to set the levy and adopted tax rate. Historically, over the last five years, this request has been just over 54 cents higher than the certified tax rate that the council approves with Form 4 and then certified by the state. Roughly, it takes eleven months from start to finish to go from capital planning to a certified budget and tax rate for the following year. This week, I will leave you with the words of Donald Rumsfeld because as we do this planning for next year, we still work on the day-to-day items. "Think ahead. Don't let day-to-day operations drive out planning."