27 million of your dollars - how should we spend them?
Friends and Constituents,
I hope you’re all doing well. This week has featured several deeply impactful committee meetings at the Council. This month saw the introduction of the Spring Fiscal - a process wherein County Option Income Tax revenues are appropriated to various departments and programs.
Normally the administration unilaterally determines how funding will be allocated, forcing Councilors to react in a short timeframe. For the first time in recent memory, this spring the Hogsett administration worked collaboratively with some Democratic Councilors in order to ensure Council priorities received funding.
Note the key word some - neither my six Republican colleagues nor I, as an uncaucused Councilor, were given any advance notice of what items would be included in this 27 million dollar spending package. Once again, this deprives some districts like District 13 of having an equal opportunity to participate in government.
I must say that most of the areas to which the fiscal proposals appropriates money are ones that my constituents have expressed support for. However, I need your help in reviewing the proposals to determine whether I should support them as written, propose amendments, or vote against them.
I reviewed Monday’s Metropolitan Economic Development Committee meeting and attended Tuesday’s Administration and Finance Committee meeting as an unpaid guest, and I am still poring through the many pages of documentation.
For now, I wanted to provide you the full agenda packets provided to Councilors, showing the mayoral administration’s justification for the funding.
Here is the packet for the Metropolitan Economic Development Committee. (PILOT information starts on page 37)
And here is the packet for the Administration and Finance Committee. (slide deck for the Spring Fiscal starts on page 10)
Items from these two meetings that I’m looking at carefully (and will send an email next week with more details on):
$300,000 being allocated to pay for the Investigative Committee’s continuing work looking into the allegations of abuse within the Hogsett Administration
$2 million to invest in new vehicles to allow DPW to plow residential streets next time it snows
Another $2 million to pay for contractors to plow streets
$600,000 to pay for the Circle City Readers program, which is operated by the Mayor’s Office for Education Innovation, for another semester
$500,000 funding to implement safer street recommendations made by the Fatal Crash Review Team
$2 million to provide local funds and more flexibility for a new Homeowner Repair Program
A Payment In Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) tax abatement for an affordable housing project
There’s a lot of good work being funded in the proposed package, but there are a few items that cause me some concern. How do you feel about this spending package? What questions can I help answer for you?
I continue to be honored and grateful for the opportunity to serve District 13, and I look forward to your feedback to help me continue to represent you well.
In love and solidarity,
Jesse