LOUISVILLE, Ky. — There are millions of dollars left to be spent in Louisville's budget, with funds carried over from the 2020 fiscal year. The leftover funds are from the $26 million of CARES Act funding Louisville received from the federal government to help with coronavirus response and recovery.
On Tuesday, Metro Council's budget committee held a special meeting to begin discussing how the funds should be spent but delayed a vote on the proposal as councilmembers voiced concerns with the plan.
Mayor Greg Fischer proposed a mid-year spending adjustment worth $5.2 million to address community needs.
The mayor worked with Metro Council on the proposal, which focuses on public safety, homeless assistance, city cleanup and youth outreach efforts.
Officials said that funding is encompassed in two ordinances sponsored by Metro Council President David James and members Keisha Dorsey, Bill Hollander, Barbara Sexton Smith and Markus Winkler. It contains a $3.5 operating amendment and a capital amendment of $1.7 million.
The $3.5 million is a portion of the CARES Act funding that will carry over from the 2020 to the 2021 fiscal year.
Here's a breakdown of what the funding would provide:
- $1,000,000 for the city’s Clean Collaborative effort, including funds to increase Public Works’ staffing for community clean-ups, street sweeping and graffiti removal, and funding to expand the Downtown Louisville Partnership’s cleanup work.
- $600,000 for the Office of Resilience & Community Services to establish a mobile response team to address issues related to homelessness, and another $250,000 to address areas of need in homeless assistance efforts, as identified by a Louisville Metro Government gap analysis.
- $750,000 to assist with Kentucky Science Center operations due to decreased attendance caused by the pandemic.
- $583,700 for Codes & Regulations to increase vacant lot mowing and graffiti removal.
- $350,000 for the Office for Safe & Healthy Neighborhoods to hire youth outreach specialists and to fund the Group Violence Initiative (GVI), in partnership with the US Attorney’s Office – in an effort to address the racial disparities and inequitable impact of violence in our community.
Another $10 million would go towards immediate utilities assistance, and there would still be $12.5 remaining that would be held for use in the next fiscal year towards pandemic recovery and response.
"The level of cleanliness in this city is not acceptable," the director of Public Works Vanessa Burns, told the committee Tuesday. "Nobody is coming back to Louisville if every place you look there's dirt and filth."
While directors of city cabinets advocated to councilmembers reasons why they need the funds, and how they'd utilize them, councilmembers raised concerns.
"What we don't want to do is write checks we can't cash," Councilman Scott Reed, (R-16), said.
The city said putting money towards tackling those issues is timely and in an effort to revitalize downtown, which has been hurt by the pandemic. But critics on the council questioned why the city can't hold the money for use next year or instead put the funds towards other issues.
"You can't tell me money spent on grass mowing is timely. We're not going to be mowing grass for six months folks, who are we kidding," Councilman Brent Ackerson, (D-26) said. "You tell me that street cleanings or maybe removing graffiti downtown is somehow going to revitalize it? Hell no it's not. You want to revitalize downtown, give low interest loans to those businesses that are suffering, because downtown sucks, plain and simple."
One pressing community need the city said would receive funding to address is homelessness. Tameka Laird, with the Office of Resilience & Community Services, told councilmembers Tuesday there are around 8,500 homeless individuals on Louisville's streets, which she said is a growing population.
"They are going to increase, they are not going to decrease because mental health is on the rise and Covid has not made it any better," Laird said.
"What's happening is the stores and restaurants that are closing, the homeless are going to those areas," Burns added.
Instead of passing an emergency ordinance, the committee will now hold a second special meeting to continue discussing the funding by the end of the month. The goal, committee chairman Bill Hollander, (D-9) said, is to then vote for approval on the funding at a full council meeting Jan. 4.
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