Mayor Scott Fadness had a one-word review of his own spending plan when he stood before the Fishers City Council Monday night: boring.

He meant it as a compliment. Fadness used the same word earlier in the day in a podcast interview, and he repeated it for the council — the 2027 budget contains no crises, no surprises and no dramatic course corrections, and that is precisely the point.

The $224 million proposal is about 10% larger than the $203.6 million budget the council approved for 2026, but much of that growth sits in one place: Public Works, up 21%, with capital spending for wastewater infrastructure more than doubling following the city’s acquisition of HSE Utilities. Strip that out and the plan looks a great deal like last year’s.

For city hall employees, the headline is compensation. The budget funds a 3% across-the-board pay raise and raises the city’s matching contribution to workers’ 457 retirement plans by $1,000, bringing the annual city match to $4,000 per employee.

Fadness again set holding the municipal property tax rate steady as his central goal — maximizing value for the rate rather than raising it. That is a harder trick in 2027 than it sounds. Certified assessed value growth for the city comes in at just 0.4%, down from 2.7% a year ago, as new state homeowner and rental deductions shrink taxable value even while property values hold up. The state’s maximum levy growth quotient is 6%, and annexation could push the city’s available levy up roughly 9%, but officials have not said how much of that room they intend to use. Local income tax has taken up some slack — Fishers is projected to receive about $47.3 million in certified-share LIT revenue in 2027, on top of a one-time $10 million distribution this year that padded reserves.

Public safety remains the largest area of growth outside utilities. The police budget rises about 10%, adding detective capacity along with digital forensics work and support for the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. The fire department’s operating budget is essentially flat, but recruits hired in earlier budget cycles move onto operational staff, and the department plans a fourth medic unit, four additional paramedics and a trauma blood program.

The plan also continues the neighborhood vibrancy and teacher innovation grant programs, funds the Fishers Community Center expansion — including a rooftop studio due to open late next spring, at a facility where membership has grown 30% to 4,880 units — and keeps money flowing to roads and sidewalks, with Cumberland Road widening and 16 to 18 miles of annual resurfacing on the engineering list.

A public hearing was held Monday. The council is scheduled to adopt the budget Oct. 12.