GONZALES -- Tuesday night, the Gonzales City Council approved its budget for the 2026-2027 Fiscal year, which was just days away from starting.

This came after a previous budget proposal failed to pass last month.

"Tonight we made some amendments to list all city employee salaries in the budget and do some reductions in some other areas where we thought were needed," Councilman Kirk Boudreaux said.

One of the biggest changes to the 2026-27 budget is a salary increase for all city of Gonzales employees, including Mayor Tim Riley and Police Chief Sherman Jackson. Councilman Boudreaux says it is in line with a 2.4% cost of living increase for all employees.

"Those salaries will be 2.4% higher than the included FY 2026 Salary Schedule," Boudreaux said.

However, even with the increase, the salaries budget will actually be reduced by $680,281.12 for the upcoming fiscal year.

"There was a lot of disagreement on positions and salaries that were created without council approval, which we kind of covered that again this year. I don't think there are any salaries that are in there that we did not help create or fund," Councilwoman Terri Lambert said.

Council members reduced the general fund and recreation budget by $77,000, bringing the total budget reduction for the 2026-27 budget year to $757,281.12, or by 3.22%.

Lambert says the full budget is expected to be around $22-23 million.

"For the city of Gonzales this size, it's my opinion, we have too many people that are paid over $100,000," Lambert said.

One area that will see an increase is the self-insured property damage fund, which will have $60,000 added into it for the fiscal year.

"We have constantly had about $150,000 in that fund, which is a fund that we use to pay for our comp & collision on wrecked vehicles. Police vehicles, fire vehicles, city vehicles. We pay for the damage on that," Lambert said.

Even though the 26-27 fiscal year starts next week, the council agreed on the budget far sooner than last year, which didn't see an agreement until August of 2025, months after the 25-26 budget year began.

"We can stay within the budget. It costs a lot today to run public safety, and our public safety budget is significant," Boudreaux said.

Some of the budget reductions include community development money and money for the Jambalaya Festival Association. The 26-27 fiscal year begins June 1, with the 25-26 year ending on May 31.