Fort Scott’s city commission spent about 35 minutes on Monday, July 27, on a proposed 2027 budget that closes a projected shortfall: on paper, it balances. How it balances is what commissioners kept circling back to.
According to the budget presentation filed with the meeting agenda, the plan holds the general fund levy flat at 35.023 mills — the largest piece of a city property tax rate that totalled 43.382 mills in the 2026 budget and moves the general fund from a projected $231,000 deficit to a $40,000 surplus. It gets there partly through belt-tightening — holding two police positions and one fire position vacant, and limiting capital purchases — and partly by applying $500,000 it hopes to raise from selling lake lots to debt — which the city scores as $134,733 of recurring relief a year, not as $500,000 of operating money. It also funds a 3% wage increase and absorbs a 15% jump in health insurance.
That $500,000 is money the city only gets once, and Baker Tilly financial advisor Ben Hart, who presented the budget, was direct about why he wants it spent on debt rather than daily operations.
The thinking behind the lake lots, he told commissioners, is that the money has to go to retiring debt — it cannot pay for day-to-day operations. “It’s also a one-time revenue source. And that’s it. You only get it once. You match that up with a one-time expense that would benefit the general fund, what that does is eliminate $134,000 in debt service payments out of the general fund.” (watch)
City Manager Brad Matkin said the lots are already surveyed: “The lake lots that he’s talking about are the five that have already been staked out. … It’s on the east side at the very end, be the north end.” (watch)
What if the lots don’t sell
Mayor Kathryn Salsbury asked the obvious question: “What if we don’t sell any lots like that?” (watch)
Hart said the city would fall back on money coming from Bourbon County for dispatch services — using part of that payment to cover the shortfall. Earlier he had said that would have to “take place for the next three or four years” (watch) (watch), for as long as the debt is outstanding.
That county payment isn’t in the budget at all. “Keep in mind, what we try to do is keep the dispatch payment from the county out of the general fund entirely,” Hart said. “Right now it’s not accounted for anywhere in the 27 budget.” (watch)
It also isn’t spare change. Hart described it as “reserved for future, well, really economic development,” pointing to the rodeo initiative the commission had announced as the sort of thing that might offset falling sales tax. (watch) So if the lake lots don’t sell, the trade-off isn’t free: money the city has been holding for possible future economic-development priorities would go to old debt instead.
Commissioner Julie Buchta pushed on whether early payoff actually saves anything. “What are we paying in interest? I mean, if we pay off those debts, are we trying to remember what our interest rate is?” she asked. (watch) Hart said the two trucks involved — a fire pumper and a ladder truck, according to the presentation — are near the end of their payment schedules, so the interest avoided would be roughly $75,000 in total over the remaining term. That is a separate figure from the recurring saving: the city puts the annual debt service reduction at $134,733 a year.
The other flashpoint was the municipal golf course, which the city pulled into its own fund to see whether it makes money. It doesn’t, and the 2027 budget sets aside nothing to cover its losses — only the annual golf cart lease (watch). We will look at the golf course, and how Fort Scott came to own it, in a separate story.
Where the money comes from
Per the presentation, about 33% of general fund revenue is property tax and about 30% is sales tax, with franchise taxes at 14%. Personnel is roughly 69% of general fund spending — Fort Scott is, as Hart described it, a “service driven industry.” The plan assumes sales tax falls about $118,930 and franchise taxes about $134,944, including roughly $75,000 less in electric franchise tax.
The general fund should end the year with about $1.2 million in reserve — around 17.7% of spending, or about 65 days of operating money. “That’s if all revenue stopped and ceased to exist,” Hart said, “you’d have 65 days operating reserve to continue to maintain services.” (watch)
What’s next
Commissioners asked for a 2026 year-end forecast, a list of contractual services above about $10,000, and a clearer comparison of paying cash versus borrowing. Hart reminded them the choices are theirs. “This is the city administrator’s budget. You come up with what priorities look like. Our job is to set them up for you and give you the data necessary to make that decision.” (watch)
The budget calendar filed with the agenda sets the next work session for August 18, with the public hearing and adoption on September 15.
Based on the city’s published recording of the July 27, 2026 budget work session and the budget presentation filed with that meeting’s agenda.
