Terre Haute Passes a $141 Million Budget Built on Surplus Cash. The City Says the Projects Must Be Done by 2028.

Terre Haute City Hall, seen from the Vigo County Courthouse in 2012. Photo: Huwmanbeing / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

When Mayor Brandon Sakbun walked the Terre Haute City Council through his 2027 spending plan on Sept. 23, the public wasn't allowed to speak. Outside of some city officials and the media, nobody else was in the room, the Tribune-Star reported.

Two weeks later, it passed. The council approved a 2027 city budget of $141,005,338 at its Oct. 8 meeting, a 4.63% increase over this year, along with a separate $4,237,497 sanitary budget, the Tribune-Star reported Thursday night. All 14 salary ordinances that came with it passed 9-0.

Where the extra money comes from

The city's own two-page summary, posted with the Tribune-Star's coverage, is unusually candid about what's carrying the increase. It puts the 2026 budget at about $134.9 million and says surplus Economic Development Income Tax and casino gaming revenue from 2024 and 2025 are “responsible for 66% of the increase.” The general fund, the city's main operating account, rose only 2.25%.

The administration proposes “an additional $3M in EDIT from our surplus, which has grown by over 67% in 3 years,” the summary says, and it bills the whole package as “funded without debt.”

Paying cash instead of borrowing is a real point in the mayor's favor, and taxpayers should give him credit for it. But a surplus that grew by two-thirds in three years is also local income-tax money the city collected and didn't need at the time. Spending it down on parks and pavement is one answer to that. Lowering the rate is another, and neither Tribune-Star report mentions anyone at City Hall proposing it.

A deadline written into the fine print

The same document carries a line worth reading twice: projects funded through gaming revenue and EDIT “must be completed by 2028 due to SEA 1 Impacts and Grant Requirements.” SEA 1 is the 2025 state property-tax law that reshapes how local governments raise money. In plain terms, the city has put itself on a clock to get this money spent.

What it buys, according to the summary and the Tribune-Star: up to $4 million for road paving, $900,000 for sidewalks, $800,000 to tear down blighted properties, and more than $2 million for drainage and traffic-signal work. More than $23.1 million goes to community development and community projects, including $1 million for the Booker T. Washington remodel and a $3.2 million Oakley Playground renovation that draws $800,000 from casino money. Sewer rehabilitation on Ohio Street and North Fourth Street is set to start in the spring of 2027.

Sakbun was blunt about one cost he can't control. Asked by Councilman Jim Chalos about his biggest challenges, he named police overtime for big public events and finding anything resembling reasonably priced insurance. “The system is completely broken,” he said, the Tribune-Star reported. He also said paving one mile of road cost six times more in 2026 than in 2016, citing an Indiana Department of Transportation study.

The paychecks

City Hall employees get 2% raises next year, while street, parks and wastewater workers get 5%, Sakbun said in September. Police, fire and EMS pay stays flat in 2027 after those employees received 18% raises through collective bargaining last year. Officers and firefighters will earn between $62,960 in their first year and $87,660, the Tribune-Star reported.

The mayor will be paid $109,214. City Engineer Marcus Maurer will make $102,136, and the fire and police chiefs $100,511 each. In September, the Tribune-Star reported council members would take home $18,571 apiece; its Oct. 8 report put the figure at $19,443 each “as opposed to the previously reported $18,571.” Whichever number residents were working from, the council approved its own pay ordinance unanimously.

Hydrite comes back to the same address

One more item on the Oct. 8 agenda will come back around. Hydrite Chemical Co. asked the council to designate its plant at 1260 Lockport Road and 2400 Erie Canal Road an Economic Revitalization Area so it can spend $28 million to expand and hire 10 new workers. The council said yes, and Hydrite will return soon seeking eight-year real and personal property tax abatements, the Tribune-Star reported.

This isn't the company's first trip. In 2022, the council unanimously approved two 10-year abatements for a Hydrite expansion at the same Lockport Road site, worth $774,092 and $1.023 million, for a project promising 14 jobs and $830,000 in combined pay, WTWO reported then. The city's Board of Public Works had signed off first, the Tribune-Star wrote.

Keeping a manufacturer growing in Terre Haute is worth something. So is a straight answer, before the next vote, on whether the 2022 job promises were met and how many years of breaks one plant should stack up. The council will have that chance when Hydrite's abatement request comes back.

The budget itself is done. The 2028 deadline on the money that's paying for it isn't going anywhere.

Written by Hoosiers, for Hoosiers.