Jonesboro, AR – (JonesboroRightNow.com) – The Craighead County Quorum Court discussed its 2026 operating budget Monday night.
The 2026 budget totals $59,808,690.70. The 2025 budget was $71,292,890.11.
Notable changes include raises for all county employees, budgeting for a 27% increase in health insurance costs, an 11.5% increase in workers’ compensation, and a 33% increase in building insurance costs.
“The ones [county employees] that are not over their maximums on the salary schedule, it was a 5% raise; others, it was a smaller amount,” said Craighead County Judge Marvin Day.
Day added that the health insurance increase was due to overall rising insurance costs, while the increase in building insurance was the result of the recent remodel of the Craighead County Courthouse Annex.
Other items include a possible expansion for the district court building, replacing windows in the Craighead County Courthouse Annex with more energy-efficient ones, and upgrading the county’s phone systems.
“We also did put a little money in the budget to remodel the annex building. There’s some windows that birds can fly in and out of,” Day said. “Their [the windows] energy efficiency is gone and we can do better.”
Craighead County Sheriff Marty Boyd said major expenses are expected in 2026 for the Craighead County Detention Center; however, he said they are not listed in the budget yet. He added that, because the exact amount of money was unknown for these improvements, which included a new roof and chillers, they would later be proposed as an appropriation ordinance when the need arose.
“Myself and the judge talked about it, and because the cost is fluctuating so much right now, we decided to do that by appropriation when the time came,” Boyd said. “If we put it in the budget, we may be $100,000 short or over at that time, so we decided not to put it in the budget at that time.”
The budget had its first reading Monday night, meaning it has two more readings before the court will vote whether or not to approve it.
Read the full budget here.
