Mayor Gorton gives plan for next year’s “crisis budget”

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WTVQ) — Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton announced her budget plan Tuesday morning, calling it a “crisis budget”.

She started the budget address saying the budget proposal she was presenting is one no one is happy with.

She says the budget proposal will make up for the $40-million shortfall the city is facing for the next budget year in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Mayor Gorton says there’s also a current $9-million shortfall for this year.

Under the $372,643,779 budget Gorton unveiled, there are no layoffs or furloughs for the city’s more than 3,000 employees and no tax hikes.

There are small cuts to city government like landscaping and mowing, and larger cuts like those to the affordable housing fund and social services.

Those cuts total around $13-million.

Gorton also says around $6-million dollars in grants the city provides to outside programs and agencies the will be cut.

She is calling on those who can afford it to step in and contribute to the non-profits that will be hit by the cuts.

Here’s the mayor’s proposed budget fact sheet:

• $372,643,779 million General Fund budget
• Budget focuses on nuts and bolts of government – public safety, garbage pickup, sewers, roads
• Budget designed to balance in the face of the downturn caused by COVID-19 – loss of                  $9 million in FY20 (current year); $40 million in FY21(July 20-June 21)
• Budget will keep city on a sustainable path financially
• Internal Reductions include $7.5 million in personnel savings. No lay-offs of permanent employees; not funding 47 vacant permanent positions
• Internal Reductions – $12.6 million scattered throughout government – not across-

the-board percentage cut

• External Agency Reductions – $6 million, including Extended Social Resource grants to social service agencies
• Affordable Housing Reduction – $1.8 million
• Public safety – 57% of General Fund budget, same as last year
• LexArts – Suspend direct funding. Issue a challenge grant. The city will provide a grant of up to $200,000 to match funds raised by LexArts, dollar-for-dollar, after July 1.
• Economic Development – RFP to fund economic development partners including Commerce Lexington, the Downtown Lexington Partnership, the World Trade Center and the Urban League. Overall reduction of $358,000. Maintaining Workforce Development funds.
• Use of one-time money to balance budget, including $13.6 million from Rainy Day Fund, the first time it has been used since it was established in the 90s.
• Debt service for $7.6 million bond – the smallest bond in 10 years. Includes $5 million for paving, $1.7 million to replace police vehicles, $343,000 for fire turnout gear.

The mayor says she will continue to get up each day and fight for Lexington.

She closed with a poem:

“And then the whole world walked inside and shut their doors and said: We will stop it all. Everything. To protect our weaker ones, our sicker ones, our older ones. And nothing, nothing in the history of humankind ever felt more like love than this.”