It’s obvious from the way the City Council split $786,450 in changes to the 2026 budget that council members are more concerned about the city’s fund balance than they are the city’s tax rate.

Sales tax trends convinced city officials that increasing the sales tax budget by $348,857 was achievable. While we are typically wary of increasing the sales tax, both Mayor Kim Ecklund and Comptroller Ericka Thomas have shown themselves to be conservative when it comes to the sales tax in the past. At the same time, new information allowed the city to decrease its health insurance fund budget by $385,967 and the Police and Fire Retirement budget by $51,626. Rather than apply the increased revenues and decreased expenses entirely to limiting a 7.5% tax levy increase, council members approved using 60% of the money toward the city’s surplus and 40% toward decreasing the tax levy.

That decision tells you all you need to know about the thoughts of the council members who will remain when the calendar turns to January. The 2027 and 2027 budgets will look a lot like the 2026 budget. There already wasn’t a lot of fat to cut in the city budget, and employee costs are going to keep going up, not down. If the city doesn’t find a way to increase the value of property in the city or increase its revenue streams in the form of state aid, additional county sales tax or a magic money stream that hasn’t yet been discovered, then there are only two options left to balance the budget each year – the surplus and city taxpayers. It would have been easy to apply the entire $786,450 to decrease the 2026 budget. But the smart decision is to prop up the fund balance and decrease taxes a bit at the same time.

It should be obvious to both incoming council members and those who will continue serving that Jamestown’s budget, as it stands, isn’t sustainable for the long term. If the city is going to continue spending money as it typically does then new revenue has to be secured. Or, the city needs to find a way to lessen the cost it pays to provide city services. It’s simple and incredibly complex all at the same time. We have known for decades what has to be done, but it takes two – and sometimes in these cases three or four – to tango.

Moves like beefing up the fund balance are short-term maneuvers meant to buy the city time to chart a new course. But eventually the short-term moves will dry up, kind of like the person at the end of a game of Monopoly who relies on perfect rolls of the dice to avoid properties with hotels while trying to get around to “Go” or Free Parking. Eventually, luck runs out.