Council questions subsidies, grants and staffing during multi‑topic budget hearing

Cleveland City Council’s Finance Committee spent much of its Feb. 12 budget hearing pressing city departments for more detail on subsidies, contract payments and staffing as the administration advances the 2025 proposed budget.

Council members focused first on the city’s subsidies for municipally owned assets managed by outside operators: Highland Park Golf Course, which the city turned over to a nonprofit operator two years ago; the West Side Market, operated under a management contract; and Huntington Bank Stadium (the Browns stadium), whose annual city costs include debt service and transfers from the general fund.

Council members repeatedly asked for concrete financial reports and timetables. On Highland, members asked when the city would stop subsidizing operations after management moved to an operator (identified in the hearing as Troon / Trune). City staff said the original business plan expected subsidies to end within five years of the operator taking over (the city is two years into that schedule) and promised to provide updated profit‑and‑loss statements, the operator’s capital contributions and a recalibrated forecast. Multiple council members said they want ongoing, annual or quarterly financial reporting from nonprofit operators when the city owns the asset.

Council members also pressed staff about a longstanding $1,125,000 annual transfer labeled “Schools, Recreation and Cultural,” which several council members tied to a stadium‑era commitment and asked the administration and the Cleveland Municipal School District for documentation of the original source and current use. Several members called for a five‑year audit of how Cleveland Municipal School District (CMSD) spent the funds, and for a report on what the district contributes toward the programs the city supports.

On the West Side Market, council members and staff described a one‑year-old operating arrangement under which the nonprofit market operator receives a quarterly payment from the city for reimbursable operating expenses, while vendor rents are still collected into the market fund. City staff said some subsidies remain while the operator scales up and that the budgeted 2025 “transfers in” reflect a general‑fund subsidy to cover shortfalls; council members asked for the operator’s 2024 accounting and warned the council will track year‑to‑year increases in transfers.

Huntington Bank Stadium remained a…