New Lexington B udget Includes Bus
After a few final adjustments – including approving the purchase of a new accessible bus for Lexington City Schools – Lexington City Council unanimously approved the draft budget for upcoming fiscal year and the city’s FY26–FY30 capital investment plan last Thursday.
Superintendent Rebecca Walters told The News-Gazette in an email on Monday that the school system is “thrilled” to have received the support of the city in the purchase of the new bus.
“With our current shuttle bus, we do not have wheelchair accessibility, and we often need a smaller vehicle to support specialized student transportation, field trips, and other small group and team transportation needs,” she said. “The additional 14-passenger bus will allow us to meet multiple needs in the school district with a vehicle that does not require the driver to have a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL), meaning that employees other than our bus driver can drive the new bus.”
The bus, which is expected to cost $106,005, was not originally included in the draft budget for FY26, and to help cover the cost, finance director Jennifer Bell presented two options to Council. The first was to forego the purchase of one of the new 2026 Ford Explorers planned to be purchased for the Lexington Police Department, which would provided $84,000 to go toward the bus. The remaining $22,005 would be taken from the city’s fund balance, increasing the fund balance use for the upcoming fiscal year from $115,187 to $137,192.
The second proposed solution for the costs was for the city to forego the purchase of two vehicles for the police department: the 2026 Ford Explorer and one of the used electric vehicles. This would result in $124,000 of funds to go toward the bus ($84,000 from the Explorer, $40,000 from the electric vehicle) and would reduce the city’s overall spending by $17,500. It would also reduce the required use of fund balance to $97,687.
The second option was the one Bell recommended to Council.
“The police department has vehicles that can operate, whereas the schools have teachers who pick up students, or they rent a bus from the county and hire a driver,” she said. “I think this would allow us to spread the wealth, so to speak, throughout all of our departments” Bell told Council that both options had been discussed with Police Chief Angela Greene and that she was “on board” with both options and that the Explorer and electric vehicle would be included in the FY27 budget. She also noted that Council had the option to forego the purchase of the bus in FY26 and to add it to a future budget.
Council member Nicholas Betts moved to move forward with the second option for the purchase of the bus and Vice Mayor Marylin Alexander provided the second. The motion passed unanimously.
During her presentation of the draft budget to Council, Bell also noted two adjustments that had been made to the budget since it was first presented to Council in March, both of which were budget neutral. The first was that, in the original budget, there were several city employees who did not have proposed salary increases in the upcoming fiscal year. At the suggestion of Council, some of those employees will be receiving increases. In order to accommodate the increase, $21,116 was reallocated in the general fund among various wages and fringes by reducing the city’s bad debt and contingency expense lines to $0 and $86,498, respectively.
The second change resulted in a miscalculation in four of the fringe calculations for the Lexington Fire Department (FICA, retirement, life insurance, and workers’ compensation), which total to $8,365. To make up for the difference, Bell said she further reduced the contingency expense line to $78,133.
With the reduction in spending from not purchasing the two police vehicles, the city’s budgeted expenses for FY26 stand at $42,255,612 (the original draft budgeted $42,271,161 in expenses). No tax rate or water rate increases were proposed in the budget for FY26.
Council member David Sigler moved to accept the budget with the changes and Council member Chuck Smith provided the second.
Council will hold a public hearing on a resolution to appropriate funding for the budget at its June 5 council meeting.
