Written by The Swamp Fox’s pointy little fur covered ears were burning tonight, as he heard his name brought up during budget discussions at the regular session of Marion City Council.
A courageous citizen addressed council and asked why the city’s proposed expense budget for 2026 actually increases expenditures over 2025 instead of cutting them by the target of 10% per department.
Councilman Aaron Rollins (R-At Large), who seems bi-polar when it comes to fiscal conservatism (one day he’s voting to spend more on the boondoggle that is Marion Area Transit and government provided food, while the next day he’s saying that the city is spending too much and he can’t go along with it), was quick to insist that the mayor’s directive to cut spending was targeted at the OUTRAGEOUSLY BLOATED original budget expense proposal (2026 Budget Version #1) that was submitted way back in mid-November–BEFORE THE CITY ANNOUNCED FISCAL DISTRESS.
That same outrageously bloated first version of the 2026 budget came in at nearly $20 MILLION in spending–just for the General Fund.
Keep in mind that the city spent $15.259 million on General Fund expenditures in 2025.
Logically speaking, if the city is seeking to cut spending when it already has nearly $9 million in fund deficits, the implication is that 2025’s expenditures were already excessive.
Any cuts to spending should be to last year’s budget–NOT TO AN OUTRAGEOUSLY BLOATED 2026 BUDGET PROPOSAL THAT ADDED NEARLY $4.5 MILLION IN SPENDING.
The ole Swamp Fox was further flabbergasted when both Mayor Bill Collins and Director of Budget & Finance Chelsea Troiano backed up this ridiculous notion that the “cuts” were intended to be from the outrageously bloated first version of the 2026 budget.
That may be true, but it doesn’t make it right.
And it certainly doesn’t make it fiscally responsible.
It would be like going to the buffet and filling your plate with 5 lbs of food and then when you’re down to the final drumstick, you leave it on the plate, staring at it in accomplishment while thinking that you’re cutting back on your excessive eating and sticking to your diet.
We’re now sitting at the fourth version of the proposed 2026 budget. That version increases spending by more than $500,000 over what was spent in 2025.
That version also sees double digit spending increases to police, fire, transit and other departments over what those same departments spent in 2025. Most of it, of course, is going toward pay and benefit increases.
If it was never the intention to use 2025’s actual expenditures as the baseline for 10% cuts, that’s fine. But don’t act like you’re really doing much in the way of cutting.
It would be like if your household had a 2025 budget of $10,000 for vacations and recreation.
When you tell your spouse that you budgeted $15,000 for vacations and recreation in 2026, she flips out and says that times are tough and you need to cut spending, not increase it.
Wanting to spend more despite your wife’s directive, you cut the budget from $15,000 to $12,500.
When your wife confronts you about it and asks if you cut spending, you tell her yes–even though you know that she was asking you if you cut it down from last year’s $10,000 budget.
You didn’t necessarily lie, but you didn’t tell the truth either.
I know I’ve used that same analogy before, but it works, so I’m using it again.
That’s what happened here.
Councilman Rollins knows it.
Mayor Bill Collins knows it.
Budget Director Chelsea Troiano knows it.
And, most importantly, the people of the city of Marion know it.