Metro Nashville budget workshop focuses on one-time fund restorations, hospital pay and housing wishlist

At a Metro Nashville Council budget work session, finance officials outlined plans to use fund balance to cover roughly $48 million in one-time expenses, including a $21 million restoration to the city’s self‑insured medical-benefits trust and a $13.7 million replenishment for the injury‑on‑duty fund.

“These are all funded by the use of fund balance,” Janine Reid, finance director for Metro Nashville, told the council as she walked members through the one‑time items and the actuarial work behind the recommendations.

Why it matters: the restorations respond to an unusually costly year of medical and workers‑comp claims that depleted reserves and, if left unaddressed, could force the city to cut services or increase premiums. Reid said actuaries presented the benefit board with an analysis showing claims far outpaced premiums and recommended restoring the trust fund to a 5% reserve target.

Reid and budget staff described the medical‑benefit adjustment as tied to an “anomaly year” in claims. Council members asked for detail on the dollar figures; when pressed, Reid and staff confirmed Metro’s portion to restore the insurance trust fund is $21 million and that the recommended transfer would meet the 5% reserve policy.

Officials also identified a $13.7 million one‑time infusion for the injury‑on‑duty (IOD) fund, which covers medical bills and lost wages for employees and pensioners with work‑related injuries. Ken Hartidge, assistant budget officer, said the IOD fund is self‑insured and “you cannot let your injury on duty fund go negative.” He characterized the proposed transfer as necessary to ensure the city can continue to pay claims into FY27.

Actuarial context: Deputy director of law Tom Cross and other staff explained that Metro runs multiple insurance‑related funds — judgments and losses, property loss and a self‑insured liability fund — that are evaluated annually by actuaries. Cross said actuaries aim to keep funds at confidence levels that make Metro 95% likely to meet known and latent claims, and pointed to rising self‑insured retentions, especially in the property fund where wind and hail retentions have grown to $10 million per event.

Hospital and wages: Council members pressed finance about Nashville General Hospital’s request for prior‑year and upcoming cost‑of‑living adjustments. Reid and Budget Director Aaron Pratt said hospital leaders requested a 2% prior‑year adjustment (about $1.12 million) and a 5% FY27 cola; collectively those requests were described during the meeting as a material increase and as part of the hospital’s reported $4.3 million shortfall. Pratt said he and finance staff worked with hospital leadership to identify current‑year expenses and revenue adjustments that could reduce the gap; he said the hospital’s FY27 requests were expected to be included in the council’s first 4% packet and that some federal American Rescue Plan (ARPA) reimbursements could cover eligible public‑health salaries.

Housing wishlist and nonprofits: The session also conducted a detailed, line‑by‑line review of a condensed council wish list of additional allocations. Multiple council members pressed for increased funding to the Barnes Affordable Housing Trust (members said $22 million had been identified and some sought the strategy’s recommended $30 million total), and members proposed a range of reallocations and new asks for nonprofits, shelter providers and programmatic pilots. Director Reid and budget staff repeatedly reminded the body that some items were already budgeted in departmental accounts or could be eligible for the 4% allocation, while others would draw accounts negative if approved without an offset.

Next steps: council members were reminded that revised wish lists were due by 11:59 p.m. and that the committee would continue work in a second session the following day. Finance staff offered to provide the full actuarial presentations and detailed account roll‑forwards to members who requested them.

The workshop included technical explanations of internal service charges, reserve roll‑forwards in the budget ordinance, and the limits of council authority over school baseline funding; no formal votes were recorded during the session.