Despite dealing with a deficit when creating the proposed $38.74 million fiscal 2026 DeKalb County budget, the county’s top official said he thinks a major budgetary stressor in recent years is beginning to wane.

When he initially set out to prepare the fiscal 2026 budget, interim DeKalb County Administrator Derek Hiland said the county appeared to be short-funded by millions of dollars. But he has since proposed a balanced budget of $38.74 million, according to county documents.

The county has spent the past several years financing the DeKalb County Rehabilitation and Nursing Center. That institution was almost sold to a private buyer after delinquent billing and other factors left the center millions of dollars in debt.

DeKalb County provided the center, which remains under public ownership, with $9.86 million in operating expenses from fiscal 2021 to fiscal 2023, according to county documents.

“The concentration over the last three years, four years, has been the DCRNC, and – as we’re reviewing and analyzing the quarterly reports of this year alone – it seems as though things are moving in the right direction,” Hiland said.

County officials estimate that the center again will operate with a loss of $319,876 in fiscal 2026, but that annual figure would be a fraction of what the loss has been for half a decade.

“When we started this, we were over $2 million a year in the deficit,” Hiland said. “A lot of that was attributed to not rebidding contracts and just assuming the status quo, continually utilizing agency staffing.”

Hiland said organizing “more expedient” billing and hiring more in-house nurses have helped the county-owned nursing center to lessen its annual losses.

The proposed fiscal 2026 budget includes $200,000 for the replacement of a walk-in cooler, as well as a $504,000 transfer from the landfill host benefit fund to the nursing center.

To shore up the couple of million dollars the county needed to balance the budget for fiscal 2026, Hiland said he proposed that the county use portions of its general reserve fund and money in the county’s tort and liability reserve funds.

“Those two elements will help offset the budget deficit,” Hiland said.

DeKalb County’s fiscal 2026 budget has not yet been approved, but it is expected to be voted on by the DeKalb County Board this month.