BELLEFONTE — The Centre County Board of Commissioners were presented a budget proposal for 2025 for Centre County government affairs at their weekly meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 3.
Richard Killian, director of budget and finance, presented the proposal of $135 million, which includes both an operating budget of $118.5 million and a capital budget of $16.5 million to support the county’s residents, programs and services.
Killian outlined that revenues for operations are expected to see a 3.7% increase. Still, for the 15th year in a row, real estate taxes will not increase. According to a statement from the BOC, “County millage rates — the property tax (in dollars) levied per $1,000 of a property’s assessed value — remain at $7.84 mills.”
According to the budget presentation, federal and state grants will have the largest proposed revenue contributions, followed by real estate taxes, department earnings, internal services and transfers and lastly, interest earnings and rent.
In addition to operating revenues increasing in 2025, expenditures are also anticipated to increase by 4.8%. The expenditure rate sits slightly above the 4.5% four-year average inflation rate. This increase, according to the proposal is due to “employee group insurance, covering personnel costs and County contributions to employee health insurance.”
A further analysis of the county’s expenses by function were provided during the presentation by Killian, who noted, “we break it down by function to demonstrate our priorities.” According to Killian, the categories of expenses and their percentage includes:
• Human services — 28.9%
• Administration — 19.5%
• Capital projects — 12.2%
• Judicial — 9.8%
• Corrections — 8.6%
• Public safety — 8.1%
• ITS and fleet (internal services) — 5.0%
• Debt service — 4.0%
• Community development — 2.8%
• Public works, culture and recreation — 1.1%
Due to several significant capital projects nearing completion, such as the courthouse retaining wall and renovations of the new human services building, less money will be allocated to capital spending, with a decrease of 4.7% planned in 2025.
The General Fund Reserve, comprised of close to 15% of unassigned funds, is expected to remain as is in the proposed budget at the recommendation of the Government Finance Officers’ Association.
“We are very fortunate,” Commissioner Mark Higgins noted during the meeting about the budget. “Delivering $118 million of services off of $30 million of taxes would not be possible without the generosity of the people and providers of Centre County.”
Next for the proposal, will be a 20 day comment period open to the public. After, the budget is expected to be adopted by the BOC at their meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 31.
