Campbell County approves $71.8M budget, with planned use of reserves

Campbell County plans to draw nearly $2.8 million from its fund balance in fiscal year 2027 as officials work to maintain current services despite projected revenues falling short of expenditures. 

Campbell County Finance Director/Treasurer Laura Lewis gave the initial fiscal year 2027 budget presentation on May 20, when the fiscal court held a first reading. The budget was passed with a second reading at the June 17 fiscal court meeting. 

The fiscal year 2026 budget was from July 1, 2025 to June 30 2026 and the fiscal 2027 year budget operates from July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027. 

Looking ahead, Lewis said the goal of the fiscal year 2027 budget is to maintain current services in the community. 

The fiscal year 2027 proposed budget includes $68.981 million in revenues and net transfers and $71.812 million in expenditures, resulting in a planned use of $2.831 million from the county’s fund balance. A fund balance is similar to a savings account for a government. It represents money accumulated from prior years when revenues exceeded expenditures or when reserves were built up.

The beginning fund balance for fiscal year 2027 is $57.368 million. Because expenditures are projected to exceed revenues by $2.831 million, the county plans to use a portion of its fund balance to cover the difference. This results in an ending fund balance of $54.537 million at the end of fiscal year 2027.

“Historically, our budgeted deficit is overcome by the collection of either additional revenue due to growth in the county or lower than anticipated expenditures due to timing delays or favorable pricing,” Lewis said.

During her presentation, Lewis said the county is projecting a $472,000 reduction in revenue from fiscal year 2026, mostly related to the county road aid and municipal road aid receipts. Expenditures are projected to be about $242,000 less than the prior year. She said the reduction in expenditures is mostly related to retirement contributions/mandatory contributions to the state pension authority. 

There’s over 90 revenue sources for the county, large and small.

The two largest sources of revenue for the county are real property taxes (20%) and payroll (30%.)

Real property tax is budgeted in 2027 to be 20% of budgeted revenue, or about $13.8 million. That’s a 4% increase from the current fiscal 2026 budgeted amount, and Lewis said it is growth driven, not rate driven. 

She said it is one of the few revenue sources the county can control. With that, she said the county is budgeting for it in May, but will not get the assessment from the Department for Local Government, until late July, early August. Then the county has 45 to 60 days to set that rate, which usually happens in August or September by the fiscal court, which she said is well after the budget’s been adopted.

The payroll tax is about 30% of budgeted revenue, that’s $20.87 million forecasted for fiscal year 2027. Lewis said that the budget is based on actual receipts for three quarters of fiscal year 2026 payroll data and estimates for the April to June 2026 quarter. 

“Those collections come from economic growth and jobs in the county, and the rate has remained unchanged for decades at about 1.05%,” Lewis said. 

The greatest expenditures to the county are employee salary and wages (25%), employee benefits (14%) and contracted services (21%), followed by capital outlay (14%). 

Contracted services, budget at about $16 million includes the jail medical services and food contracts for inmates, computer software and systems like maintenance agreements, renewal costs for software as a service, professional engineering costs, and maintenance agreements. 

Capital expenditures are about $10.9 million. This is for regular equipment, fleet and infrastructure improvements that happen on an annual basis. 

The large projects the county has underway such as the spillway at AJ Jolly Lake, and the new public safety building, Lewis said, are in the bond construction fund. 

“A lot of numbers going on, but I think that all of us can appreciate that at home we feel budget crunches in such an unknown time and future with cost of energy and really ultimately a lot of different things over the past number of years, so that puts a lot more stress on you (Lewis) and your department to present us and the community with something that makes some sense and that we can live within,” Campbell County Commissioner Geoff Besecker said. “I appreciate that, because I’m guessing the most stressful part of this is the unknowns, and where we are going.” 

Lewis also went over the county’s fiscal year 2026 budget and projection results. She said the county had about $7.6 million less in revenue but about $11 million less in expenditures than expected. 

She said the $7.6 million less in revenue was due to pass through grants (funding that an organization receives and then passes along to another organization rather than using the money itself), grants in progress, Federal Emergency Management Agency, also known as FEMA projects, less than anticipated road aid from the state and wages inflation. 

“We’re showing that we will collect about $7.6 million less in revenue, which is an unfavorable variance of about 11%,” Lewis said. “Most of that is related to pass through grant funding from the federal and the state level of about $3.4 million partially related to a Kentucky Product Development Initiative grant, an economic development grant that’s in progress. The rest of it is related to FEMA projects for the April 2025 flooding. FEMA was shut down for a good portion of this year, so that funding has not come in in 2026.”

Lewis said the county also had $230,000 in reduced county road aid from the state for fiscal year 2026 versus what they had agreed upon in the contract, which she said is always an estimate. The county also had a 2% wages inflation budgeted for the payroll tax receipts.

The county also had about $11 million or 15% less in expenditures than expected in 2026, Lewis said. That is related to pass through grants and favorable contracts. 

The county was well below cost opinion on several projects according to Lewis. She said $2.1 million is related to favorable pricing for large jail medical contract and the food contracts at the detention center. County road capital projects also received a “very good competition and bidding prices this year” Lewis said. 

There was also $400,000 related to operational efficiency in the general fund and cost reductions. Lewis said $1.1 million was unutilized contingency funds (a reserved pool of money), and about $4.7 million is related to carryover purchase orders, which are carried into a new fiscal or budget year. 

“I’m going to echo that I have a very high level of confidence in the work that’s being done, the numbers and the relationships between and among those numbers we have seen borne out over the years as being very accurate,” Campbell County Judge/Executive Steve Pendery said. 

Residents interested in viewing the county’s budget history, annual expenses and revenues can do so on the county’s transparency page on its website. 

Lewis’ budget presentation can be viewed below.