Monroe County has adopted a balanced budget — meaning it plans to spend no more money in 2026 than it is expected to collect in taxes and other revenue — but it achieved the balance only by employing a creative budgeting maneuver: reallocating millions of dollars previously earmarked for the new jail .

When discussions about next year's budget began in August, the council projected that the spending requests from department heads were about $8 million more than the county expected to collect in revenue.

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