The meat-and-potatoes portion of Nashville’s budget hearings has concluded. This week, Mayor Megan Barry will listen to nontraditional ideas for how the Metro government might serve taxpayers.
This round of hearings, known as Public Investment Plans, or PIPs, is meant to feel more like courting an investor for startup money.
Last year, when the administration tried this for the first time, government leaders put together slick presentations to show how they’d address a wide-range of challenges, from sheltering abandoned animals to expanding preschool and to distributing more locally grown foods.
Fourteen ideas were approved and given a slice of more than $3 million in Barry’s first budget (
see the full list here). Other funded projects are also making progress — like engaging juvenile delinquents through art and training more workers for the construction industry — and some are seeking a second round of funding.
Among the new proposals, the mayor will hear about a breastfeeding support program for new mothers, an idea to help the homeless with showers and bathrooms, and a second attempt to pay for more nurses in Metro schools.
Four panelists will listen with Barry: Finance Director Talia Lomax-O’dneal, Chief Operating Officer Rich Riebeling, Director of Innovation Nancy Shapiro, and Michael Burcham, the founding president of the Nashville Entrepreneur Center.
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