Tippecanoe County officials have begun the process of finalizing the 2015 spending plan.
Budget hearings began this morning, with a roughly $1.5-million shortfall between anticipated revenue and expenses for next year.
Auditor Jennifer Weston says a big reason for the gap is a proposed pay hike for county employees.
"Revenue is not increasing at all," says Weston. "But we did budget a 3% increase for salaries for next year, and so that was about $1-million of it."
She says the three-percent raise is not set in stone yet.
Weston says some of the shortfall will be made up using money that is projected to be leftover from the 2014 budget.
"We have had some pretty tight budgets in the past few years," says Weston. "We've also really hammered down on our revenues. When we look at a three-year history, which is probably the most representative of what's going on in county government, we generally carry over about 7% of the budget each year in terms of unspent dollars."
Weston says as of now, the council members have decided to use about $550-thousand dollars from this year’s budget to bring the 2015 spending plan in line.
But she says that could change before the budget is finalized at the October 14th council meeting.
Two public hearings are scheduled prior to that at the Tippecanoe County Office Building— one tomorrow morning at 8 and another the evening of September 22nd.