The DeKalb County Board unanimously approved its 2025 budget with a shortfall of 1.1 million dollars. So, the plan projects spending more than it expects to receive in tax revenue.
DeKalb County Board member Scott Campbell said the county will spend some of their reserve funds to cover the gap.
“Instead of collecting everything we need to spend in revenue," he said, "we're going to collect most of what we need in revenue and cover the difference between expenses and revenue through using our savings our fund balance.”
The board also approved lowering the county tax rate by 10 percent to 0.80802.
Board documents show that folks with a property valued at $200,000 dollars may on average pay about seven dollars less to the county in the coming year.
Campbell said the 2025 budget is about a five percent increase from the current year. He said property owners won’t be paying for the increase “because of substantial investment in DeKalb County in the last couple of years, we are able to capture new construction’s taxes that are coming onto the rolls and use only that money to cover our increased expenses.”
One of the more recent developments that has generated revenue for the county is the Meta DeKalb Data Center. In 2022 and 2023, over 1.5 million dollars in taxes were collected from Meta for the county, according to an analysis by the City of DeKalb.
Inflation
The inflation rate for all items, excluding food and energy, is at 4.1 percent for the Midwest, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Campbell said the 2025 county budget takes into account inflation.
“Inflation is a large driver of an increase in our county budget," he said, "as is a very carefully crafted and very forward-looking strategic plan to reduce our overall debt.”
DeKalb County Nursing Center
The budget incorporates an expected loss of the DeKalb County Nursing Center of an estimated $1.4 million for the next fiscal year.
“We have money in the budget to cover the nursing home’s anticipated expenses for the coming year,” Campbell said. “We're not projecting necessarily that the nursing home will break even in the coming year.”
He said the amount was calculated by the county alongside Jordan Healthcare, the consulting management firm.
The overall debt accumulated by the nursing center is over $11 million, according to county budget documents.
