Finance Director warns cash 'going fast' as 2026 budget heads to Elyria Council

ELYRIA — The city was able to reduce its 2026 budget slightly before sending the appropriations to City Council for approval Monday, but the finance director reiterated his warning against the city's current deficit spending. On Monday, the Finance Committee voted to send the final 2026 permanent appropriations budget forward to Council as a whole and recommend its approval. Council will consider the budget at its regular meeting next week. While Finance Director Ted Pileski said he was able to lower the request by about $2 million since he first presented it to the committee in February, the budget that will go before Council still anticipates the city spending more than $8 million more than it projects to make in 2026. According to Pileski's latest estimates, he expects the city to bring just over $38.5 million in revenue into its general fund, the fund which accounts for most day-to-day city expenses, in 2026. The city's departments, meanwhile, have requested $46.9 million in appropriations in the next fiscal year. Elyria could overcome this discrepancy because the city entered 2026 with $12.3 million in cash in its general fund, and because actual spending usually falls below the appropriation, but Pileski repeated his regular warning to Council that deficit spending could not continue in perpetuity. City Councilman Ed Doehne, D-3rd Ward, is not on the Finance Committee, but was present at the meeting and asked Pileski if the city currently had any plans to slow down its spending. Pileski said that federal funds through the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, during the COVID-19 pandemic had allowed the city to hire and better pay firefighters and police officers while still building up its largest cash reserve ever. In 2026 though, that federal money is not fully gone, and the cost to maintain that higher staffing remains. "We are keeping an eye on it," Pileski said. "I have indicated to the administration that I do not think we should be replacing safety forces as they retire. … I am still holding some money in the police and fire pension funds that we can use next year if we run into a problem, but, you know, we are not going in a good direction here. You really can't make cuts to employees when you still have $7 million in your bank account, but it is going fast." Doehne asked Pileski if he thought that the city implementing a hiring freeze could help stop the erosion of the city's savings. "It is not up to me, but any way we can save money would be a good thing," Pileski said. Last year, Elyria's tax revenue came in 6 percent higher than expected, but Pileski said after the meeting that he did not think this would be repeated in 2026. Also hurting the city's bottom line in 2026 is the fact that there will be 27 biweekly pay periods this fiscal year, rather than the usual 26. Pileski said this phenomenon occurs every 11 to 12 years, and that this quirk was a large part of the reason that the city expected to pay about $4 million more in 2026 than the year before. Contact Owen MacMillan at (440) 329-7123 or omacmillan@chroniclet.com.