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During a called meeting on Wednesday, the City of Hogansville approved its $26 million budget for FY 2026.

Prior to the final adoption, Hogansville City Manager Lisa Kelly gave a brief overview of the highlights for the FY 2026 budget, which goes into effect July 1.

Kelly said this year’s budget puts a focus on maintaining a good general fund, while attracting and retaining employees for a growing Hogansville, and doing necessary water and sewer infrastructure improvements.

“It’s been a challenge for a number of years now, and how we keep them from applying for positions that are paying $1 more right down the road, and how we create additional water and sewer infrastructure, which is being really handled through development,” Kelly said. “As developers come in, they are required to buy into their piece of the pie. That will eventually get all the upgrades needed, specifically the sewer capacity lines.”

Hogansville is growing. The city is seeing an increase in tax revenue, primarily from new construction.  As of January through May, Hogansville has seen 109 new construction properties that were built, and that number is growing every day.

The budget calls for a few new employees, including clerks in the finance department and the public works department.

The city will also secure a traffic planning firm to create a road map for future roads and streets, which would include impact study recommendations and conceptual design work. Funds will also be allocated for aerial updates to QPublic in partnership with the county and other local cities.

Hogansville will also increase the starting pay for its police officers to $27.51 per hour and create a new program for incentive pay for officers based on longevity and residency within the city limits of Hogansville.

The city is also budgeting $150,000 to pair with SPLOST funding for paving roads.

“We don’t know what those projects will look like yet. We’ll be coming back to the council to establish what the biggest need is and where that needs to be,” Kelly said.

Three new employees will be added to help facilitate maintaining roads, sidewalks and grass. 

“Currently, water and sewer employees are filling in with some of those types of roles. But as we’re growing, their roles are becoming dedicated more to water and sewer, and they have less time they can go fill in other places,” Kelly said.

The Historic Royal Theater will also see a continued budget that allows for monthly live performances on most weekends in between. 

“We’re doing a big, big push for sponsorships and memberships this upcoming year. We found that those aren’t where we expected them to be or need to be. We’re going to do some more marketing and try to get those two line items up. We have lowered the ticket prices for more cost-effective live events,” Kelly said.

The current part-time box office employee will also be converted to full-time as the position currently requires regular full-time hours on a normal basis.

Hogansville continues to grow. In just a few short years, the city’s budget has more than doubled. In FY 2020-2021, the city had an $11 million budget. This year, the budget clocks in at $26,000,815.

The budget was unanimously approved by the Hogansville City Council.