MARQUETTE, Mich. (WZMQ) – In a special all-day meeting Thursday, the Marquette City Commission met to discuss and review its preliminary budget for the 2026 Fiscal Year.
The final budget ultimately needs to be adopted by the end of this fiscal year on September 30. Thursday’s special meeting majorly detailed management of the city’s General Fund. Other budget matters on priorities such as the Marquette DDA, Brownfield Authority, and the Local Development Finance Authority (LDFA) were discussed throughout the day.
This year’s process has come around a few weeks earlier than in 2024, adding more time to discuss between each other, as well as with the community.
“We have some time between now and then to make some modifications and adjustments as we go forward,” said City Manager, Karen Kovacs. “Because we have some time here, we do have some opportunity to get out to the community and talk about our budget, and talk about what their taxes fund and how it’s utilized.”
Although Marquette’s largest revenue source comes from property, half of the city’s land is non-taxable. This includes Northern Michigan University property, and high amounts of non-profits, churches, and government owned land. This adds a main challenge to the city’s annual revenue opportunities.
“To provide services to our entire community with only 50% of the opportunity for revenue is a challenge, but we’re incredibly proud of how much we can accomplish,” said Kovacs.
Over the past couple of years, the city has also had to push back on issuing bonds. Thursday’s meeting covered those drawbacks and how to go about properly addressing them.
“We have some needs for projects,” said Kovacs. “So, looking at exploring what those funding mechanisms could be, and how we can accomplish them fiscally responsibly is what was proposed to the commission today.”
On September 29, a public hearing is scheduled to further build community discussion, before the new fiscal year begins on October 1. A full meeting schedule for the Marquette City Commission can be found here.
