Christian County Judge-Executive Jerry Gilliam presented his proposed budget in an address Friday morning—the plan includes a raise for county employees and funding for several capital projects.
The proposed $48 million budget for fiscal year 2024-2025 shows an increase from the prior year’s original budget of $43.5 million, and Judge Gilliam says they were happy to be able to provide four percent raises for employees, saying they want to provide as much as possible.
Some capital projects that are slated in the budget were the concessions stands at Ruff Park, improvements to the current Judge-Executive’s Office, an additional storage building for the Christian County Sheriff’s Office and improvements at the Christian County Jail.
Gilliam says they are anticipating a four percent increase to their revenue for the upcoming fiscal year, which shows that Christian County is growing.
The Judge-Executive highlighted several priorities the Fiscal Court and his administration intends to focus on, including maximizing a relationship with Fort Campbell, focusing on population growth through housing expansion, public safety—such as an increase in law enforcement presence in the county—improvement and expansion on infrastructure and more.
Judge Gilliam says they intend to increase efforts to bring in more dollars from both private and public investors and he looks forward to seeing those plans come to fruition.
The proposed budget still needs to be considered and passed by Fiscal Court, which they will take up at next week’s Fiscal Court meeting.