Finance committee reviews ordinance to amend special‑revenue budgets, add behavioral‑health position

Gary Common Council’s finance committee on Tuesday, Feb. 25 reviewed CPO 20 25 0 8, an ordinance to amend City of Gary ordinance 9749 and appropriate additional salaries and operating budgets across several special‑revenue funds, including tourism, fleet self‑insurance, baseball maintenance, Love Your Block and Lake Michigan Coastal funds.

M. Salida Green, city controller, presented the ordinance and walked members through requested appropriations and recent deposits. The controller told the committee the package includes a proposed $300,000 increase for baseball maintenance to cover invoices spanning February 2024 and 2025 related to the RailCats Stadium contract; the stadium contract historically caps maintenance payments at $150,000 per year. Green also described a request to appropriate roughly $900,000 for the fleet self‑insurance fund (line items discussed included an itemized request of $150,000 for repair parts and large allocations for property insurance and equipment repairs), and a $70,000 budget for the Love Your Block program that includes a $50,000 project‑director line.

The environmental affairs request totals…