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Fiscal Year 2021-2022 Capital and Operating Budget
As your representative on the Louisville Metro Council, I and a number of my colleagues have recently put together our priorities for the upcoming Fiscal Year. We hope to share our vision for how Metro’s next budget should look in light of approximately $60 million in surplus funds with the expectation that at least $432 million in American Recovery Plan funds will be delivered to our city over the course of the next two years.
My priorities:
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Supporting Public Safety: This includes improved pay for police officers, the hiring of as many new members of the police force to address the flood of people who have opted to retire or transfer to other nearby police departments, increased funding of technology to assist in combating the rise in crime experienced in our city over the past few years as well as investing in programs funded over the course of the past year that improve diversion and deflection models of safety.
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Addressing Infrastructure: Metro has nearly $2 billion in deferred maintenance needs. These needs include paving sub-standard streets, repairing sidewalks, replacing buildings such as LMPD Headquarters and fixing old and outdated equipment at our parks. A major priority for AB Sawyer Park is to move the current maintenance facility to a new building on the Metro Parks Headquarters property. This will allow the unsightly section of AB Sawyer to be completely transformed into more greenspace with additional amenities. Over the past 5 years the Metro Council has made addressing paving a priority. We have increased paving from under $5 million annually to $20 million. With this continued progress we will achieve our goal of having all streets rated as being above acceptable standards by our goal of 2026. It is my hope that we can use these excess funds to shorten the timeline for achieving our paving goals, while also making a significant impact toward addressing our other maintenance needs.
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Quality of Life: Our city continues to expand into undeveloped areas of Jefferson County. While growth can be good, the failure of Metro to supply existing residents and future residents with the needed roads and other infrastructure needed is not acceptable. The decision by the Mayor two years ago to close the only neighborhood place east of Downtown means that anyone needing assistance must travel 10-15 miles just to get access to the services they need. This as well as the lack of available internet access, parks, and a library to serve the people of the Southeastern part (particularly Fern Creek) of our community must be addressed in this budget. Additionally, we want to continue the successful work of the newly created Clean Collaborative Crew, that has effectively deployed teams of workers across the community picking up trash and debris along our roads, as well as removing graffiti.
The Mayor’s Proposed Budget:
The Mayor’s budget failed to include many of the priorities listed above. Instead of taking an aggressive approach to use one-time monies to fund efforts to reduce deferred maintenance, this budget takes on larger than normal amounts of debt while also increasing the size of government through the addition of approximately 60 new positions.
While I do agree with a number of the proposals made by Mayor Fischer, I am concerned that many of these, if funded in the manner suggested, will create a difficult budget outlook when Federal funds dry up and one time revenue savings have long gone. My focus today is similar to my focus two years ago when we looked for efficiencies and found long-term savings. We can’t allow the good financial news of today to become a path towards needing to raise taxes in a couple of years. I plan to use the next two months and approximately 50 hours of planned budget hearings to find ways to achieve the Mayor’s goals as well as the goals we presented in February.
Mayor’s Budget Proposal Highlights:
3 Police recruiting classes: This will help stop the continued loss of officers through the hiring of up to 120 newly trained officers. Having three classes will not make up for the more than 200 officers who have left the community over the course of the past few years, but it will be a step in the right direction.
West End Opportunity Zone and Other Initiatives Funded: The Mayor has pledged $10 million (via bond) towards the creation of a West End Opportunity Zone that will work with State Funds and privately raised donations to invest $30 million into 8 identified neighborhoods of West Louisville. This funding as well as funding for millions in improved parks, neighborhood services and business partnerships are meant to help lift up those areas of the community that are most economically disadvantaged.
Housing / Homelessness: $10 million has been allocated to continue the City’s efforts to improve access to affordable housing, an additional $3 million will go toward a program that will help people move from renting to home ownership and an additional $11 million in Federal funds are designated for addressing homelessness and those on the verge of homelessness.
Infrastructure: $20 million has been allocated toward paving, which keeps us on pace to improve the condition of all Metro roads by 2026 and $2 million has been allocated for fixing sidewalks. The Mayor has also increased the amount of funding for deferred maintenance in most departments, but not to the level that I and many on the council had hoped.
In Summary
The Mayor’s budget address was not complete. That isn’t completely his fault, as essentially, we are all waiting on the soon to be released American Recovery Plan funds as well as the guidelines for how those funds can be spent in early/mid-May. While Mayor Fischer does propose to increase spending on deferred maintenance, the efforts made within the current proposal fall short of making headway on our overall deficit. I am hopeful that following 50 hours of hearings and budget debate as well as with the delivery of Federal guidelines we will be able to address paving more roads, fixing our facilities and bringing back services such as a Neighborhood Place for Eastern Jefferson County and a Library for Southeastern Jefferson County/Fern Creek. Achieving those tasks as well as not taking on large sums of new debt and increasing the size of our operations will be a difficult task, but hopefully one that we can all rally around achieving.
It is an honor to serve as your representative on the Metro Council. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.
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