LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- As a wave of violent crime crashes on Louisville, the Metro Council budget committee will spend more of the city's budget on public safety.Â
The committee unveiled the spending package Monday as an amendment to Mayor Greg Fischer's budget request for next fiscal year, which begins in July. Part of it could help the city provide better compensation for Louisville Metro Police officers and other first responders.
Councilman Bill Hollander, D-9, said the amendment was possible thanks to a better-than-expected revenue forecast and federal recovery funds that were used to help offset other costs. The budget amendment adds $9.3 million that Hollander said could be used to give Louisville firefighters, corrections officers, EMS workers and officers raises.
"We can't keep losing LMPD officers at the rate that we're losing them, and having better pay is the way to have a better police force," he said.
Such raises are subject to negotiation with the labor organizations representing workers in those departments.Â
The spending plan also funds a fix to another problem in Louisville: homelessness. It sends $279,400 to Goodwill Industries of Kentucky, which will use a van to go to homeless camps or panhandling spots and offer people a ride to a jobsite in exchange for lunch, a stipend and long-term support.
"We want to reduce homelessness," Rena Sharpe, chief operating officer of Goodwill Industries of Kentucky, said in a February 2021 interview. "I think it's very well-known that the amount of homelessness has increased drastically over the last year in our area."
The van that will soon be used as part of the program (WDRB Photo).
The package also includes $100,000 for the Volunteers of America Unity House, which provides food, housing and safety for families who become homeless.
Another big beneficiary of council's amendment is the Louisville Free Public Library system. The plan spends $2 million to renovate the Portland Library, which LFPL said has greater deferred maintenance needs than other branches. It spends $500,000 to reestablish a library in an historic Carnegie building, which once housed a library, in Parkland. LMPD's Professional Standards Unit (PSU) would be relocated from the building.
The council amendment also spends $1,040,000 to begin the process of reestablishing a library branch in the Fern Creek area, where a branch was closed during a tough budget negotiation in 2019.
Computers have been removed from the Fern Creek Library. (WDRB Photo)
"Those are changes that I really like to see," said Hollander.
He and others hope the changes will build on the goals of the budget overall: kickstarting the city's economy while making it safer.
The budget amendment, which passed the committee in a series of unanimous votes Monday, also includes millions of dollars for road/sidewalk repair and deferred maintenance projects:
- River Road Reconstruction ($2,250,000)
- Ohio River Levee Trail Phase III ($937,500)
- AB Sawyer Greenway ($600,000)
- Dixie Highway Streetscape – Wilson Avenue to Maple Street ($350,000)
- Olmsted Parkways Algonquin Parkway ($260,000)
- Olmsted Parkways Southern Parkway ($90,000)
- Ohio River Valley Northeast (ORVNE) segment of the Louisville Loop ($50,000)
- Westport Road Improvements ($1,000,000)
- Hikes Lane Repair ($850,000)
- St. Anthony Church Road Sidewalk Project ($187,000)
- Taylor Boulevard Crosswalk Improvements ($100,000)
- Urton Lane Sidewalk Connection to Shelbyville Road ($50,000)
- Brentlinger Lane Continuation ($350,000)
- Demolition of obsolete LMPD Headquarters ($1,000,000)
- Demolition of obsolete Fiscal Court Building ($1,400,000)
- LMPD 7th Division Headquarters Improvements ($50,000)
- Farnsley-Moreman Dock Restoration ($250,000)
- Douglass Community Center Renovations ($100,000)
- Locust Grove Renovations ($500,000)
The amendment and entire budget are expected to get final approval from Metro Council during a vote Thursday.
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