Nashville's Priorities

Investing in Nashville's Future
Staying the Course

Quality of Life-Community & Neighborhoods

The continuing focus on supporting our neighborhoods and striving to ensure a high quality of life cuts across all of our priorities. Particular efforts that are directly focused on our daily lives include:

• A new household recycling program, which is adding 1,000 new homes each day
• A continued emphasis on creating safe and affordable housing in our neighborhoods
• The master plan for sidewalks, which will guide unprecedented levels of sidewalk construction across Metro Nashville
• The master plan for our Parks, which will guide our continued investments in parks, greenways and the like as we enter the second 100 years of our Parks system.

Other enhancements include:

• Establishment of an Office of Children and Youth—Charged to help lead a community-wide effort to allow all of our children to develop their fullest individual potential, the Office on Children and Youth will take both a leadership and a supporting role to mobilize greater community outreach, involvement and coordination, and ultimately, greater accountability for programs that touch Nashville/Davidson County children and youth.
  
  
• Caring for Children—Funding has been identified to support Caring for Children. The Caring For Children Program is designed to provide services to all non-custodial children in Davidson County who are at risk of entering State custody. Staff members investigate over 3,000 child protective services referrals from the state. For more information about the services of Caring for Children click here.
  
  
• Support for Community Service Providers—Metro's budget supports local nonprofit service providers through direct appropriations. This year the YWCA Domestic Violence Shelter and United Way Family Resource Centers will receive $550,000 to provide products and services to the citizens of Nashville/Davidson county.
  
  
• Childrens' Dental Services—The Metro Public Health school-based Oral Health Program has identified numerous children with unmet dental needs with few TennCare dental providers avalible to see these children. Metro's 2003 budget identifies $300,600 to reopen the Dental Clinic at the East Health Center and begin to address the Oral Health needs of these school children. TennCare reimbursement will partially offset the cost of operating the clinic. To read more about the services of the Metro Public Health Department, click here.
  
  
• Bridges to Care Program—By creating an integrated, coordinated, culturally sensitive system of care among the county's major providers of health care, Bridges to Care aims to improve and expand access to medical, substance abuse, mental and dental health services for all of the County's uninsured and underinsured. Metro's budget identifies continuation funding in order to support three program positions and to pay portions of prescription medications provided to enrollees. For more information about the Bridges to Care and other programs designed to help the uninsured click here.
  
  
• Libraries—Computer Access—In order to accommodate the increasing number of patrons who access the library from the world wide web, Metro's budget targets funds for enhanced connectivity. To learn more about the Library's programs, click here.
  
  
• Audit Recommendations—Public Works 2003 budget supports the implementation of improvements identified by the performance audit recommendations issued by Maximus, Inc. Click here to see a downloadable version of the audit and recommendations
  
  
• Planning Commission Improvements—In order to ensure meaningful citizen participation to promote responsible growth and development in Nashville/Davidson county, Metro's budget identifies funding to support the goals of the Planning Department, which are:
  
  
  • Encouraging development that accommodates a variety of lifestyles, housing and transportation alternatives, and employment opportunities
  • Promoting regional cooperation in planning throughout Middle Tennessee
  • Serving as an accessible resource for information and technical assistance for residents, neighborhoods, and the business community.
    
    

  To read more about the initiatives of Metro's Planning Department, click here.
  

• Funding for the Arts—The budget supports an expansion of the Arts Commission's stabilization of core arts organizations, provides added funding for the creation of original artworks, plus funds New Opportunities in the Arts project. This continues Nashville's commitment to incrementally increase the Contributions to the Arts for Nashville and Davidson County arts organizations.
  
  
• Metro Transit Authority—In recognition of increased public attention to traffic and congestion, the 2003 budget provides additional operating funds.
  
  
• Partnership 2010—To show that Nashville is a city taking care of business, the budget supports the business community by attracting and recruiting new business and encouraging our local entrepreneurs.
  
  
• Neighborhood Enhancement Grants—The budget supports the Office on Neighborhood's offer Community Enhancement Grants to citizens and neighborhood organizations to initiate and carry out small-scale neighborhood improvement projects for the second year in a row.

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