(This story has been updated because an earlier version included an error. The parks department was incorrectly identified as having a shortfall of $2.4 million in its 2026 budget. That figure applies to the city’s general fund.)
RICHMOND, IN — The Richmond city’s general fund is unbalanced by more than $2.4 million in its 2026 budget as of Tuesday, Sept. 24, Richmond Common Council finance committee president Justin Burkhardt said.
One of the proposals for the general fund includes shifting money, totaling $300,000, from the police and fire pension fund to the parks department.
“We had decided for both pension and fire that we are taking a reduction in the levy of $150,000 to help support the parks because they really struggled with their budget for 2026,” city controller and Richmond Police Department Pension Board treasurer Tracy McGinnis said. “They have a generous levy and even with using the $150,000 from each, they still have an addition to their cash balance.”
McGinnis said the shift would only be for 2026 and would not carry to the following year.
Councilman Jerry Purcell asked McGinnis if the levy was limited in any way to its usage, to which she said it was not.
“So it’s not money that could go into maybe helping our police and firefighters in some way in their budgets?” Purcell asked.
“It’s a possibility in the future it could be used for that but not for 2026,” McGinnis replied.
There is a precedent for transferring levy funds from one budget item to another, McGinnis said, as in 2025, when funds were transferred from Motor Vehicle Highway to the General Fund.
“We have not had this high of a balance in either the police or the um fire pension fund, so they have a good cash balance right now,” McGinnis said.
After the $150,000 is taken from the police pension fund, she said, its balance would sit at $1.76 million, though councilman Doug Goss said it didn’t make sense to him why the levy would be taken out of those two funds, with Burkhardt asking if there would be a situation if the police needed it.
“This is not something we would do if their cash balance could not sustain it,” McGinnis said. “We have more than enough to support that.”
With the fire pension fund, Purcell said, there is $531,000 in it, with Richmond mayor Ron Oler saying it’s still an increase in 2026 after it’s taken out, adding that it sounds like an excess amount was put in the fund over the last few years.
“Just a philosophical thing here, and that is, we’re losing police and firefighters because of their base pays and we’re giving money to the parks department,” Purcell said. “It just doesn’t make sense to me.”
Beth Fields, Richmond’s director of strategic initiatives, said the city receives a maximum levy with a large bucket of funding, and then it is up to the city to allocate the money to each of the funds within the city.
“When looking at the pension funds, they are very healthy funds,” Fields said. “They are still gaining their cash balance. They are over the minimum cash balance that we typically need. The parks department was, with their levy amount, they were not able to have that amount of funding there without allocating additional funds to the parks department.”
After Fields explained how the levys worked and why there was a deduction shown in the pension fund, Purcell again said he had an issue with the transfer.
“We have medics that I’ve been looking through the budget trying to find a way to give them bonuses so that they stay in our city and they earn us money and we’re moving that money to the parks department. I have a philosophical issue with that.”
No final decisions were made on the proposal, and the committee of the whole is meeting again at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 24 due to what Burkhardt said was “the amount of errors financially that the administration has in this budget.”
Evan Weaver is a news and sports reporter at The Palladium-Item. Contact him on X (@evan_weaver7) or email at eweaver@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Richmond Palladium-Item: Richmond council members have issues with transfer of levy money
