After making final tweaks to the city budget for maintenance workers, summer jobs, City Council staff, ward projects and more, Cleveland has set its spending plan for the year.
Council signed off on the city’s $2.3 billion budget Monday night. The vote puts a period on council’s budget season, the annual review of city finances that often turns into an airing of city services’ shortcomings.
Cleveland’s General Fund, which pays for basic services, ran a $91 million surplus last year. That gave Mayor Justin Bibb’s administration wiggle room to add new spending items at City Council’s request.
The city is dipping into that surplus, called the “carryover,” to pay for such council requests as:
- $4.5 million for council-directed ward projects
- $975,000 to hire 15 more executive assistants for council’s 15 members
- $806,853 to take distressed properties into receivership
- $699,000 to hire 10 more park maintenance workers and to host an additional council event per ward
- $500,000 for summer jobs through Youth Opportunities Unlimited
- $250,000 for Summer Sprouts community gardens
In all, Cleveland is spending about $920 million on services through the General Fund. (Major enterprises such as the airports, Division of Water and Cleveland Public Power, come out of other funds.)
The budget passed with 11 votes in favor and 3 against from Council Members Tanmay Shah, Stephanie Howse-Jones and Richard Starr.
Council debates $105 million for roads, recreation centers and a City Hall renovation
Also on Monday, council discussed plans to spend $105 million repaving streets, fixing up city-owned parks and buildings, buying vehicles and renovating City Hall.
The list includes money for residential repaving, a separated bikeway on Superior Avenue, recreation center parking lots and sidewalks and brick street repairs, for example. Council voted to approve the vehicle purchases on Monday night but hasn’t voted on the other items.
One item that the Bibb administration struck from its spending plans was $195,000 for gunshot detection technology. But that is not the final word on city spending for gunshot detection.
The city intends to issue a request for proposals from companies to provide the technology, according to James DeRosa, the director of the Mayor’s Office of Capital Projects. (The Bibb administration paused an earlier push for a $2 million contract with Flock Safety.)
Council Members Michael Polensek and Brian Kazy questioned the Bibb administration’s plans for nearly $8.7 million in City Hall renovations. The work includes fixing up offices, upgrading some bathrooms and setting up a new and accessible western building entrance.
“The whole idea is this idea of welcome, rooted in accessibility,” Mark Duluk, the city’s architecture manager, told council members.
The administration also plans to open a coffee shop near the new entrance in the basement, which it has rebranded as the “garden level.” Polensek was skeptical about the coffee shop. He said council should take a closer look at what is really needed inside City Hall.
“It’s not a place to hang out. It’s not a place to party,” he said. “It’s a place to come and do your business and leave, and I want to make sure that our focus is on that.”
Kazy, who chairs the Utilities Committee, said he would vote against much of the plan because it didn’t include Cleveland Public Power infrastructure upgrades. He asked what renovating City Hall would do to improve city services.
“For the longest time, our employees were working in a building that had falling-down plaster,” DeRosa answered. “It had bathrooms that flooded. It had areas of the sub-basement that folks were supposed to keep their records for retention that were beyond decay.”
The time had come to fix up the building to help retain employees, he said.
“And I feel that same way about Cleveland Public Power,” Kazy replied.