The city of Rochelle’s fiscal 2026 budget is $13 million less than the previous year’s, primarily due to less spending on capital projects, City Manager Jeff Fiegenschuh said.

The total budget this year is $120,019,874, down from last year’s $133.5 million budget. The 2026 budget includes funding for hiring police officers, construction of a new hangar at the Rochelle Municipal Airport, a new electric substation on Centerpoint Drive, completion of an event space and utility undergrounding in the downtown area, and new pickleball courts at Fairways Golf Course.

Of the total 2026 budget, 335 of expenditures are made up of contractual services (power purchases), 27% is made up of capital outlay, 19% is made up of personnel costs, 13% is made up of transfers, 4% is debt service, 3% percent is supplies and 1% is other.

The city’s planned total general fund revenue in 2026 is $16,326,475 with expenditures of $16,603,887. Police, fire and public works comprise 80% of the city’s general fund expenses, Fiegenschuh said.

“Our department heads did a really good job of holding the line on their budgets as best as possible,” Fiegenschuh said. “We are adding staff in a couple of departments. Overall, every department’s budget remained pretty flat.”

The city has seen its overall property tax levy rate decrease since 2021. In 2021 the rate was 1.04307, in 2022 it was 1.00636, in 2023 it was 0.94124, in 2024 it was 0.92812, and in 2025 it is 0.87592.

“That’s primarily due to equalized assessed value (EAV) going up every year.” Fiegenschuh said. “There’s a lot of factors in that, but one of those is the successful economic development work we’ve done bringing in more EAV dollars to the community to allow us to lower our overall levy.”

As of Jan. 1, 2026, the city will have $35,064,464 in debt across all funds. It plans to make $3,966,225 in payments during 2026 to bring the number to $31,098,239 at the end of the year.

“We continue to pay our debt down,” Fiegenschuh said. “We’ll be paying off multiple individual project portions in the next few years.”

Planned and budgeted staffing changes in 2026 for the city include the hiring of two additional police officers in anticipation of future retirements, hiring an additional electric lineman in anticipation of pending retirements, and the addition of an engineering technician.

From 2017 to 2025, the Rochelle Police Department has added staffing across its entire department, including nine additional patrol officers.

“Very clearly we were understaffed when it came to patrol back in 2017,” Fiegenschuh said. “The chief at the time had no administrative support and we are where we need to be with dispatchers. We’ve increased staffing by almost 12 people at RPD since 2017. We want to make sure our police department is fully staffed, especially with patrol officers on the streets keeping our people safe.”

Staffing has also recently increased in the Rochelle Fire Department due to increased call volumes and in the city’s street department due to an effort to do more work in house rather than pay contractors. The city of Rochelle has a total of 148 full-time employees, Fiegenschuh said.

The city’s capital improvement plan for 2026 totals $32,257,211, with a majority of those funds dedicated to streets, electric and water projects.

Capital improvement projects in 2026 include the downtown stage, storage and restrooms facility and parking lots, the new airport hangar, new carpet and flooring at City Hall and RPD, a new dump truck for public works, pavement improvements on South Main Street, upgrades to the Flagg Road and 20th Street intersection, a new electric substation and line, development of a new water well, Rochelle Technology Center electrical upgrades and new pickleball courts at the golf course.

Fiegenschuh closed the Nov. 17 budget workshop by recapping city accomplishments and teamwork in 2024 and 2025.

“One of the reasons our budget is lower than it was last year is because our team did a really good job of getting projects done,” Fiegenschuh said. “They don’t mess around. We have some of the best staff I’ve worked with in my 20 years in this profession.”