Council and Mayor discuss budget priorities

Last week, the Council and the Mayor’s Administration held a Joint Budget Retreat to share their respective priorities for the upcoming Fiscal Year 2026 (FY26) Budget. Here is a breakdown of each of their goals for the upcoming Budget cycle.

Council’s Priorities

Council set their priorities a few weeks ago at their own Budget Retreat a few weeks ago. You can learn more about the Council’s priorities here.

The issues Council brought to the Mayor for top consideration were:

• Traffic enforcement

• Gun violence prevention

• Small and local business development

• Workforce training and recruitment

• Youth services, including social services and parks programming

• Extended Social Resources grants, which provide support for non-profits throughout Lexington

  • 1% of the previous year’s General Fund Revenue is required to go toward ESR grants. In FY25, that 1% number was $4.79 million.

• Traffic calming and mitigation, including Complete Streets projects

• Environmental services

  • This refers to general support for the Division of Environmental Services, which maintains public greenspace, administers a number of environmental grants and education programs, and more.

  • This also includes programs such as the Lex Grow Trees grant program, Solarize Lexington, and Empower Lexington.

• Street repair and paving

• Homelessness prevention and intervention

• Permanent Supportive Housing

• Support for emergency shelters for the homeless

• A new Government Center

• Support for the ADA Improvement Plan

In Council’s Budget Retreat, each Councilmember also discussed some of their individual priorities, which were not specified in detail to the Mayor but are worth highlighting here:

• Urban Service Boundary Expansion Area planning - Vice Mayor Dan Wu, Councilmembers Denise Gray (D6), Joseph Hale (D7), and Hil Boone (D12)

• Gun Violence Prevention: Councilmembers Tyler Morton (D1), Amy Beasley (D8), Jennifer Reynoldz (D10)

• Traffic Enforcement: Councilmembers Emma Curtis (D4), Dave Sevigny (D10)

• Workforce Recruitment: Councilmember James Brown (At-Large)

• Public Safety: Councilmember Chuck Ellinger (At-Large)

• Coldstream Business Park Development: Shayla Lynch (D2)

• Sidewalks, Trails, & Bike Lanes: Hannah LeGris (D3)

• Permanent Supportive Housing: Liz Sheehan (D5)

• LFUCG Government Center: Whitney Baxter (D9)

The Mayor’s Priorities and Plans

Mayor Gorton listed many broad topics as priorities, including public safety, economic development, environmental sustainability, and more, without much detail.

However, some items that Mayor Gorton provided more detail on for the upcoming budget Gorton mentioned include:

• Support for a new Government Center. The City is reviewing three recent proposals from private developers for a new Government Center. None of those proposals are currently public.

• Funding for the design of a new Firefighter Training Facility. The new facility will be constructed on the site of the current facility, which is located off of Old Frankfort Pike.

• The Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) farm conservation program will not receive funding in the upcoming budget.

  • The PDR program has been given $2 million each year for the past three budget cycles.

  • The program currently has roughly $5.6 million money set aside for land acquisition.

• An across the board pay-raise for non-sworn LFUCG employees. Mayor Gorton said the Administration has not decided how much of a raise will be given.

  • A pay raise for non-sworn employees has been included in each budget since Fiscal Year 2022.

Mayor Gorton will deliver the Budget Address on April 15th and publish her proposed budget online shortly after her remarks.

Curious about the city’s budget process? You can learn more about it here!