Richmond previews FY2025–26 budget, launches online tool to gather community priorities

City of Richmond finance and administrative staff on Tuesday evening presented an overview of the proposed fiscal year 2025–26 budget process, described the city’s revenue and spending picture for the current year, and demonstrated a new online engagement and budget-simulation tool intended to collect resident priorities ahead of a May 6 council review.

“I’m deputy director of finance here in the city of Richmond,” Deputy Director of Finance Mubin Kadar said at the start of the meeting, introducing the community engagement session and the online tools staff will use to collect public input.

The presentation emphasized several points staff said are central to the coming budget process. Andrea Miller, director of finance, said, “The city improved its credit rating, with Moody's to A2.” Miller also told the audience that the city has increased its minimum general-fund reserve policy target to 21 percent of expenditures and that the city has established a Section 115 trust to prefund pension and other post-employment benefit obligations.

Why it matters: city officials said the credit rating and reserve policy reduce borrowing costs and strengthen the city’s ability to sustain services if revenues fall. Staff also flagged the city’s federal-grant exposure:…