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Public commenters press council on use of fund balance, levy buy‑down and shelter policy
Summary
During the finance committee’s public hearing on the FY26 budget, speakers urged both preservation of shelter beds and fiscal transparency. Commenters debated the city manager’s proposal to use fund balance to reduce the tax levy and asked for detailed cost analyses of proposed borrowing in the capital plan.
The finance committee held a public hearing on the FY26 budget after departmental presentations. Several community members spoke and urged the council to consider both shelter capacity and long‑term fiscal impacts when finalizing the budget.
Terrence Miller, advocacy director at Preble Street, supported using a portion of fund balance to avoid cuts to municipal services and urged the council not to reduce shelter capacity. "The shelter's budget should not be balanced on the backs of homeless families and individuals," Miller said.
Resident Steven Scharf asked the committee for clearer, public details on the city’s full fund-balance numbers and the fiscal effects of recent year-end positions, and asked for more deliberation before final decisions.
Resident Darian Plant criticized the city manager’s proposed use of roughly $9 million in unassigned fund balance to lower the tax levy this year and asked the committee to disclose the long‑term cost of borrowing if capital projects proceed as proposed. "You're proposing to spend $9,000,000 of our unassigned fund balance to temporarily buy down a staggering 15.1% tax levy increase," Plant said, calling that approach "reckless" and asking the committee for a full cost analysis of proposed bonds and long‑term interest costs.
Why it matters: The public hearing surfaced competing priorities: immediate service preservation (particularly shelter capacity) versus longer-term fiscal prudence and transparency about bond borrowing and the capital-improvement program.
Committee response and next steps: Finance staff said additional budget hearings and a scheduled second meeting in May will include remaining departments and further deliberations. Staff noted that certain municipal budget orders and a public hearing were postponed one meeting to allow alignment with state budget timing and further analysis.
Ending note: Speakers asked the committee for more transparent, itemized analysis of fund-balance uses and the projected lifetime cost of borrowing for CIP projects; committee members and staff confirmed they will continue follow-up work in upcoming meetings.
