News Story

ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, Ind. (WNDU) - The St. Joseph County Council is working to finalize the budget for 2026.

Indiana’s Senate Enrolled Act 1 applies cuts for taxpayers, but means local government has to find funding from other resources.

The budget is estimated to be around $90 million, and with that comes budget cuts and salary plateaus.

One councilmember told us this is a step in the right direction to refocus the spending of taxpayer money.

“Good news and bad news for the taxpayers. I think it’s good news our state passed a property tax cut so everybody should be seeing tax cuts coming up into the future. But that means for the government, we’re going to be expecting less dollars. Now, that’s our issue to deal with and it’s doable, but we have to be spending less,” says St. Joseph County Councilwoman Amy Drake.

Meanwhile, one controversial topic may be brought up: a $30,000 proposed raise for the county executive director of economic development, which is currently part of budget discussions.

This comes after a budgeting letter was sent out, promising that no county workers will get a raise in 2026 due to budgeting issues.

“To build our business space, it’s important to have an economic development director who is fantastic at his job,” says Dan Schaetzle, president of the St. Joseph County Council. “Bill Schalliol is the best economic development director in the state of Indiana if we look at the numbers. He has brought tens of billions of dollars of business to St. Joseph County.”

Drake says that she believes it sends the wrong message.

“I think it sounds like we’re not serious about what we say when we’re talking about cutting back,” Drake says. “$30,000 is a huge raise, and I think a lot of our taxpayers are going to look at it the same way and be rather resentful, not to mention our other employees that are not coming to us asking for pay raises.”

In regard to that possible $30,000 raise for Schalliol, WNDU 16 News Now reached out to him ahead of Tuesday night’s county council meeting but didn’t hear back.

The 2026 budget will be returned to the council for a final vote on Oct. 14.