Last week, Metro Council passed a new $2.9 billion budget. It’s the largest budget in Nashville’s history, and it impacts every person in the city.
But navigating how the budget is passed, and what’s actually in it, can be tricky. So, This Is Nashville invited Councilmember Burkley Allen, the chair of the council budget and finance committee, and Nicole Williams, Nashville Scene columnist and self-described local government obsessive, to help us break it down. Here are the highlights:
What are some of the biggest priorities in this new budget?
Councilmember Allen: The mayor, when he introduced it, said his priorities this time were on education and neighborhoods and safety. And we see that in the budget. It’s a $1.1 billion education budget for Metro Schools. And, for the first time, we’ve got $30 million from various places for affordable housing.
What does our budget tell us about our city’s priorities right now?
Councilmember Allen: The housing funding I think is going to be helpful in two things. One, building more housing that can be afforded to live in, as well as creating a new Department of Homeless Services and getting that funded as well.
And, for the first time, this year, we have an Office of Diversity Inclusion that created an equity lens, and every department sort of ran their department budget through the equity lens and said, ‘Are we being thoughtful and intentional about how this, our specific department?’
How does the Metro budget get written and passed?
Nicole Williams: You can think about it basically in two phases. You’ve got the mayoral phase and then the council phase. Ultimately, Council — like Congress — has the power of the purse, so they have to approve the budget.
The mayoral phase starts with departments submitting their budget requests, and this starts early in the year, usually January, February, March.
The mayor’s office and the finance department work to craft a budget that reflects the mayor’s priorities. And the charter requires the mayor to submit a budget to council by May 1. Then, it’s out of the mayor’s hands. Council takes over, and they go through their process.
It has to go through three readings, which means Council has to consider it three times at the second reading. That’s where that big public hearing happens. So people are able to come in and voice their opinions. They’re able to react to the mayor’s budget.
The council is also playing catch up to a certain degree because from the time that they get that mayoral budget, they only have until June 30 to pass a budget. So, they do their own departmental hearings, and they’ll typically question the department heads on whether the mayor’s budget meets their needs. And then, those are public, so you can watch all of those public hearings. And, based on that feedback, along with, like, the council work sessions, the Budget and Finance Committee chair will work with the Finance Department to submit a substitute budget.
So, that’s the council’s budget. From there, councilmembers can submit amendments if they want to see something different.
One of the important things to realize is that we have to have a balanced budget. So, that means that whatever Council wants to add, they have to take that money from somewhere else in the mayor’s proposed budget. And generally, they like to take that from places that don’t require them to to take it from other departments.
By June 30, they have to pass a budget. If they don’t approve the substitute budget, then the mayor’s budget goes into effect. But this year, they approved the substitute with about four amendments.
What is the difference between the budget and the capital spending plan?
Councilmember Allen: The budget is actually the operating budget. That’s what we spend on a day-to-day basis. And the capital spending plan is the big things that are going to last for longer than 10 years or be more than $50,000 worth of cost.
The capital spending plan is generated based on what’s called the capital improvements budget, which is our wish list. And if you want something to get built, you know, a specific sidewalk in your district or a new library or whatever that has to be in the capital improvements budget. And the council passes that on a regular schedule every year. And then, from that, the mayor’s office creates the capital spending plan, which is what we’ve decided we’re going to authorize for the upcoming year. And then some of that stuff actually gets to begin to happen.
How can people get engaged with the budget?
Councilmember Allen: I cannot argue with the statement that there is an awful lot of information to take in. The citizen’s guide to the budget is like drinking from a fire hose, with a wealth of information. But, there is an executive summary at the front of the budget, and that’s probably a good place to start.
Councilmember Mendes does a great blog where he lays things out. I have a monthly newsletter where I try to put in, you know, bite size amounts that people can absorb.
What is a strong mayor system? What does that mean for our budget?
Nicole Williams: Strong mayor systems are really common in major American cities. We operate in a strong mayor system. What that means is that the mayor who is elected has basically total authority over administrative matters. So, he is the chief executive. He has authority over administering the budget. The council still has to approve the budget, but all of that oversight and authority largely rests in the hands of the mayor.
Essentially, the mayor drives the budget process. And that’s also just the way that our budget process is set up in Nashville through our charter, which is like our founding document for Nashville. And so, that really puts the council in a reactionary position when it comes to the budget. Like I mentioned, they are reacting to the mayor’s budget. They are not preparing their own budget out of whole cloth. And so, what they’re doing is really tinkering with the mayor’s budget, really playing around the edges.
Councilmember Allen: This year, interestingly, was probably the biggest amount of money shuffled from one place to another, I think in any historic budget, just with regard to changes that the Council did make, and it’s the biggest budget we’ve ever had.
How does this new budget deal with transportation?
Nicole Williams: A few years ago, Nashville voted against a transit plan that would have provided a dedicated source of funding to really enhance the city’s transit system. And until we have a dedicated source of funding, it’s going to be really hard to make any transformative changes. The budget this year really doesn’t make those kinds of transformative investments in public transit that I would like to see.
The Nashville Department of Transportation got 45 new staff members in this budget. Council actually took $1,000,000 from WeGo to free up funding for other things in the substitute budget.
Is there anything else you want people to know about the budget?
Councilmember Allen: I think it’s just important to know that Nashville’s a growing city. I think that’s important for people to be aware that we’re trying to focus on things that make it a better place to live. And we’re, you know, sometimes flying on the plane while we’re trying to put it together because we’ve never dealt with this kind of growth before. But public input is always important and always welcome. And we hope that what we put together feels like a moral budget to people.
Schools are at the top of the list, and we’ve tried to make transportation better. She’s exactly right. We need a dedicated source of funding to really get transit going. And I think that’s a conversation that will come up in the next campaign for mayor. So, I hope we’ll have a good discussion about that and that in the future budget.
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