![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2025\/09\/2025-09-16_031503-199x200.jpg\")
HAWKINS \u2013 The City of Hawkins was unable to approve an annual budget on Monday night, as they met in a packed room filled with anxious residents.<\/p>\nHAWKINS \u2013 The City of Hawkins was unable to approve an annual budget on Monday night, as they met in a packed room filled with anxious residents.<\/p>\n
The meeting followed the release of all Hawkins Police Department officers earlier this year and served as a way to review two proposed 2025-2026 annual budgets which reduce funding for the police and fire departments. According to our news partner KETK, Hawkins residents said in the meeting they don\u2019t want to be left without local law enforcement and asked council members to postpone the vote and hold a community budget workshop.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have a police department that\u2019s nonexistent that was budgeted for $89,000 and it\u2019s nonexistent,\u201d Hawkins fire chief Ty Musick said. \u201cThere\u2019s there\u2019s really no need to cut our budget at such a drastic mark.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou disbanded our police department. That was a major decision and whether it was one supported or not, it dramatically changed this community\u2019s ability to handle public safety,\u201d Hawkins resident Amy Pack said. \u201cOur choices are cut in half, or sadly, approximately a quarter of the previous year\u2019s budget.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the proposed yearly budget two options were drafted. Proposal A would lower the police department\u2019s budget from around $384,000 to about $163,000.<\/p>\n
Proposal B would lower it even further down to about $87,000 dollars or about 23% of the 2025 budget and would also drop the fire department\u2019s budget. Neither option was approved by council members. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to rebuild this town, make it an attractive little town, a safe little town with a police department and we want our fire department to be top notch,\u201d council member Mick Medlin said.<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s sectary said after the vote \u201cthe states going to come in and take over.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
HAWKINS \u2013 The City of Hawkins was unable to approve an annual budget on Monday night, as they met in a packed room filled with anxious residents. The meeting followed the release of all Hawkins Police Department officers earlier this year and served as a way to review two proposed 2025-2026 annual budgets which reduce … Continue reading Hawkins City Council fails to pass annual budget<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1442667,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2025\/09\/2025-09-16_031503-199x200.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1442414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-07 23:34:36","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2025\/09\/2025-09-16_031503-199x200.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1442414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1442414"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1442414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1443043,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1442414\/revisions\/1443043"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1442667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1442414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1442414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1442414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}