Cost-of-living adjustments, violence prevention programs and more: Metro Council ready to vote on budget

Pay bumps for city employees. A new “Office of Youth Safety” with restorative justice programming. And “housing navigators” to help residents facing evictions.

Those are just some of the items that could receive funding from the Nashville city budget, after Metro Council Budget Chair Delishia Porterfield introduced her proposed alternative to the mayor’s initial spending proposal.

Last month, Mayor Freddie O’Connell introduced his $3.27 billion budget. It’s largely unchanged from the prior year’s spending plan — a result of projected flat tax revenues. This led O’Connell to ask Metro departments to reduce their spending by 1.4%.

Porterfield’s substitute budget — which, if the council votes to approve, will go into effect instead of the mayor’s — leaves the 1.4% reduction in place. However, it does make a series of changes.

One of those alterations is the cost-of-living adjustment for Metro employees’ salaries. O’Connell had proposed a 3.5% adjustment, which Porterfield’s amendment boosts to 4%. For someone earning $60,000 per year, that’s an additional $2,400. Despite the increase, the adjustment does not reach the 5% increase that many city staffers asked for during the recent budget public hearing.

There’s also funding for the Varsity Spending Plan — a concept put forth by the Southern Movement Committee, requesting $2 million to establish restorative justice programming in community centers and schools, as well as for the creation of a new “Office of Youth Safety.” Porterfield has allocated $1 million — again, less than what they wanted, but more than what is allocated in the mayor’s plan.

$300,000 has also been granted for Councilmember Sandra Sepulveda’s proposed contract and compliance board. The board would take a closer look at worker safety and wage theft on Metro construction sites.

All three items were major talking points during the budget public hearing earlier this month. Porterfield has also included funding for a number of other projects. Those include:

• $1 million in indigent defense through the Public Defender’s Office
• $750,000 to expand the Responders Engaged and Committed to Help (REACH) program, a non-police response to mental health calls
• $400,000 for an equity study at Metro Arts
• $200,000 for a countywide childcare study

Porterfield described her substitute budget as applying an “equity lens” during an especially tough year:

“In a year where we had flat revenues, where we had inflation, where we had to get additional money to answer for schools,” Porterfield said. “In that year we were still able to do an equitable, people-centric budget, without the reduction of city services.”

When the council adjusts the budget, they do have to make trims elsewhere. Porterfield’s spending plan finds savings by cutting from various funds — like the 4% reserve, judgments and losses, and the self-insured liability funds — as well as by delaying hiring until October for the newly proposed positions.

The council will be considering these trade-offs when the budget is up for its third and final reading next Tuesday.