HOLLIDAYSBURG — All three Blair County commissioners agreed on Friday morning to include a 0.25-mill increase in the 2026 budget to generate about $2 million in new revenue to cover almost half of the projected $4.2 million deficit.

After weeks of budget work sessions to trim down the initial deficit of about $6.9 million, the commissioners cut about $2.7 million in expense requests, including new uniforms for prison staff, ammunition for sheriff’s deputies and building maintenance projects.

Finance Director Lindsay Dempsie projected the county will have about $54.5 million in expenses and $52.3 million in revenue in 2026, leaving a remaining deficit of $2.2 million.

According to Dempsie, this shortfall will be filled using capital from the unassigned general fund balance of about $16.5 million, not including further cost-cutting measures which may be imposed pending further discussion.

The additional 0.25 mills in property tax will raise the effective millage to 5.133, or $513 for a property assessed at $100,000.

That represents an additional tax burden of about $24 per year, not counting millage imposed by local municipalities or school districts.

All three commissioners — Laura Burke, David Kessling and Amy Webster — were hesitant to raise taxes while potential areas of savings remain.

According to Burke, several department heads cut their requested 2026 budgets in advance of the commissioners’ work sessions, leaving little to no “fluff” left for further reduction, while other departments have historically gone over budget on nonessential line items, leaving more room for further revision.

One suggestion proposed by Webster was a flat 8% cut to the budgets of each government department in order to generate the necessary $2 million needed to offset the deficit.

Burke said that it would be nearly impossible for many of the smaller departments to find 8% to cut in their budget, as much of their expenses go toward mandatory spending on salaries, benefits and utilities like electricity.

The commissioners agreed to explore a more limited 5% cut to several departments, saying that they will work with Dempsie to identify which individual departments have budgeted with low levels of “fluff” to be subject to the blanket reduction in discretionary spending.

Dempsie will also rank each department by size in order to determine which will be subject to the cut.

Kessling emphasized that the 5% figure is not final, and may be changed during the commissioners’ upcoming meeting Tuesday morning, where Dempsie will deliver the final budget presentation.

Webster and Kessling both cautioned against raising the millage rate too much in 2026, as the commissioners raised the property tax by 8% in 2025 and are expecting another substantial hike in 2027 as the construction of a new county prison begins.

The commissioners agreed to increase the contingency fund for non-union staff wages and salaries in the 2026 budget in order to bring it in line with the Social Security Administration’s recommended cost of living adjustment rate of 2.8%, which tracks the cost of goods in response to inflation.

Under the 2024 updated salary study, all non-union county employees active before Oct. 1, 2025, will automatically receive a 1.5% raise in 2026 under the terms of the new wage structure.

The commissioners agreed to increase the wage budget to account for an additional 1.3% increase, raising the total to the SSA’s recommended 2.8%.

Kessling said that without “further investment in our people, we will soon be right back where we were (before the salary study).”

Many of the county’s employees are represented by three collective bargaining agreements, none of which have been renegotiated since the implementation of the study, Kessling said, so they may ask for a wage increase near the 2.8% given to their non-union counterparts once they begin bargaining for new contracts.

More than 40 representatives from local libraries attended the budget workshop, expressing their support for the positive work libraries and librarians do in communities across Blair County.

Kessling noted that this was an uncommon level of community participation in a commissioners’ meeting and thanked them for attending and sharing their voices.

Mirror Staff Writer Conner Goetz is at 814-946-7535.