Budget Presentation to the Council
Remarks by Mayor Karl Dean
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (March 25, 2008) -
Vice Mayor Neighbors, Members of the Metropolitan Council … Thank you for joining me here today for a presentation of the proposed fiscal year 2008-2009 operating budget for the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County.
We began the process of preparing this budget in December when I spoke to leaders of all the various Metro departments and affiliated agencies. The message I delivered to them in December is the same one I’m delivering to you here today: We are facing fiscal constraints in the year ahead.
Given current economic conditions, I thought it wise to be conservative in our revenue estimates. I am not proposing any new taxes and we are not borrowing funds to make up the difference. We will live within our means. As a result, we will spend fewer dollars to operate the core government than we did this fiscal year.
Over the past several weeks, cities across the country have announced budget cuts resulting from revenues falling short of projections and the realization that change is not expected in the near term. In this respect, our city is not unique.
What is unique here in Nashville is our ability to meet this challenge and become a better city for it. Nashville has a diverse economy. We continue to grow. And much like Governor Bredesen said addressing the state’s budget, these tight financial times give us reason to re-examine how we as a government do business and how we can do it better.
I am proud of the budget we have put together, and I want to thank each department for its cooperation through this difficult process. Working together, I am confident we have prepared a budget that will allow us to do more with less.
As promised, this budget reflects my priorities of education and public safety.
Let me start with schools …
Public Schools will be fully funded. We are at a critical point in our city’s history when it comes to schools. There are improvements we have to make in accordance with federal and state requirements, and the Board of Education and I have been working together to make these improvements happen.
This early in the year, there is still some uncertainty as to the department’s specific needs. However, I expect the Board of Education to be accountable for using these funds to the utmost benefit of our students, and I would encourage them to look hard for efficiencies and areas of cost savings.
Every child enrolled in our public schools deserves the best we can provide. As you’ve heard me say a number of times, education is intrinsically linked to public safety and economic development. Investing in our children now will pay dividends for years to come.
Public safety …
We have protected the funding for public safety in this budget. I am pleased the Police Department will be fully staffed by the end of this summer and that crime statistics are down for a fourth consecutive year. Chief Serpas has reassured me that the proposed budget will allow us to stay on track with this progress.
For the Fire Department, we are going to apply the resources we have to best meet the community’s needs. The primary function of the Nashville Fire Department, and of fire departments across the country, is changing from fire services to emergency medical services, or EMS.
Based on the results of the recently released EMS transport management audit, the demand for EMS is expected to increase over the next several years as our population ages. To meet that need, we have made available funds for three additional ambulances and the personnel to staff them.
We recognize the use of overtime as a management tool in the Fire Department. At the same time, it is important that this spending is transparent and that the department is held accountable for this expense. To that end, I am changing the way we account for overtime expenses. They will be included in the budget going forward.
The area where education and public safety directly overlap is in our Juvenile Court, and unfortunately over the past few years, this has been a place where more and more of our students are showing up. Juvenile Court Judge Betty Adams Green and leaders from our Police Department and Schools, came together with me and other members of our community recently to talk about truancy.
Truancy is the No. 1 indicator that a student will dropout of school, and high school dropouts are three times more likely to be involved in our criminal justice system. While a number of good ideas regarding attendance tracking and parental involvement came out of that afternoon we spent together, one idea stood out.
I am pleased to announce that I have made funding available in this budget to create a truancy center to be operated by our Juvenile Court. This will be a safe place where students and their families can come, separate from the court, to address the reasons why they are missing school. It allows for early and effective intervention. And I believe, it will lead to more students staying in school, graduating and becoming productive citizens in our city.
It was my goal in preparing this budget to focus first on finding reductions in administrative functions of the government – areas that do not directly impact services to the public. I believe we have done this successfully. And despite the short timeframe in which we had to prepare this budget, meeting this goal has resulted in a major reorganization of the core functions of our government.
We are going to eliminate internal service fees for the Department of Human Resources and the Finance Department. And to make our government more efficient and remove redundancies, we will eliminate four internal service fee offices: the Shared Business Office, Real Property Services, Metro Payment Services and the 311 Call Center. These changes alone represent $3 million a year in savings to Metro taxpayers, and allow us more funding for the things that touch people’s lives.
We have an award-winning parks system that has grown in leaps and bounds. Our libraries are a learning place, a community place, and for some, simply a quiet place. The Health Department keeps us well. And Public Works keeps our city clean and moving safely. I am so pleased that with this budget we have been able to keep these crucial services in tact, and that more government efficiency in tight financial times will preserve a high quality of life for all of us.
I will let Rich take you through the departments in detail, but I would like to briefly talk about a few other things we have been able to accomplish with this budget.
While we have worked to find efficiencies and streamline government functions, I recognize these things don’t come without some impact on the people who make this city run day after day. In this budget, we will fund an increment pay increase as part of the pay plan for Metro employees.
I am also pleased to announce that as part of the Metro Transit Authority budget, funds have been set aside so that any Metro employee that wants to ride the bus to work can do so at no cost.
It is also my goal to maximize our community resources in the areas of afterschool programs for our children, services for victims of domestic violence and community service agencies. We have a number of non profits in our community that do tremendous work along these lines, and provide services that are not offered by the government and would otherwise not be available.
For the first time, funds for these organizations will be awarded through a merit-based grant program. This will remove the politics of the Mayor’s Office and the Council from non profit funding and make it based on needs and results.
As a policy of this administration, this budget will not include a number for anticipated savings. Most departments do incur some savings during the year, and those will go to fund balance reserves.
Additionally, if we exceed what we consider to be conservative revenue projections for the year, those additional funds will be added to our reserves.
There are a number of things I wish I could stand up here and include among these points. The good news is this is only the first of four budgets I have to present during this term. I believe the fiscally prudent decisions we make now will pay off in the year and years ahead. These decisions will allow us, when the economic cycle inevitably turns back in our favor, to accomplish some of those other goals.
In the mean time, we have provided the funding our schools need. We have protected the resources for public safety. And we have acted in the best interest of all Nashville citizens by living within our means, and by putting the services we provide the public before the services the government provides itself.
The future of our city is bright. And it is our job as leaders to make decisions that will ensure we reach that future in a fiscally sound way. I look forward to seeing this budget finalized in June. I will now turn it over to Finance Director Rich Riebeling to make a detailed presentation.
Thank you very much.
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For media inquiries contact:
Janel Lacy
(615) 862-6020
janel.lacy@nashville.gov