Council will review and revise the Budget this week!
Mayor Linda Gorton delivers her Budget Address for the Fiscal Year 2026 Budget. Source: LexTV.
Council will begin finalizing the Fiscal Year 2026 Budget this week! Today and Thursday at 10am, Council will hold a Committee of the Whole (COW) Meeting where they will review and vote on recommended changes to the Budget.
Recommendations for changing the Budget come from the five Budget Links — small groups of Councilmembers that focused on specific areas of the Budget — and individual Councilmembers.
Here are the recommended changes from the Links:
Chief Administrative Officer and Housing & Community Development Link - Allocate $20,000 for a part-time Recreation Supervisor for the Black and Williams Community Center.
Mayor Gorton provided funding for one full-time Recreation Supervisor for the Black and Williams Center in her FY26 Proposed Budget. The Center also has one part-time Recreation Supervisor currently.
Currently when there are gaps in supervision at the Center, Community and Resident Services Director Danielle Sanders steps in to cover shifts.
The CAO & HACD Link says that funding for the additional part-time position will come from money the City would save by not paying Director Sanders to cover supervision shifts as she does currently.
Environmental Quality and Public Works Link - Convert two existing part-time horticulturalist positions to full-time positions for a total cost of $99,000. The two positions would be part-time for half of the Fiscal Year, and then move to full-time positions in the last half of the Fiscal Year.
These positions focus on landscaping maintenance for Lexington trails, corridors, and greenways. While they do some landscaping currently as part-time employees, they would pick up additional landscaping projects that the City currently hires contractors for.
The Link says that the additional funding for these positions, once they became full-time employees, would come from money saved by terminating some landscaping contracts and having the two positions take over those duties.
In their final meeting, the EQPW Link planned on recommending funding to purchase a Chevy Equinox for the EQPW Commissioner’s office.
They have since decided not to recommend purchasing that vehicle.
Finance, Economic Development, and Planning Link - $145,000 to create a new Deputy Director of Accounting position.
This position would serve under the current Director of Accounting, Phylis Cooper. Director Cooper intends to retire in Fiscal Year 2028, and the Deputy Director would ensure a level of cohesion for the Division once Cooper leaves the office.
The FEDP Link proposed funding this by reducing the FY26 Starting Fund Balance. The City typically budgets $1.5 million to sit in the General Fund Revenue account at the start of the Fiscal Year as a small cushion — if this position is approved, $145k would be taken from that $1.5 million.
Social Services and Public Safety Link - $40k for an additional Crisis Response Social Worker for the Community Crisis Co-Response Team.
The Community Crisis Co-Response Team sends Social Workers alongside Police officers, Firefighters, and EMS workers to respond to 911 calls that involve a mental health emergency.
Funding for this position would be taken from the budgeted overtime funds for Firefighters. The Mayor’s Proposed Budget includes $2.5 million for overtime costs.
Here are the individual Councilmember requests, organized by Councilmember:
At-Large Councilmember James Brown - $250,000 to Lextran for a Downtown Circulator pilot project; $252,000 for Community Action Council’s “Work Where You Live” workforce development program.
Lextran has recently mentioned the idea of piloting a Downtown Circulator. This Circulator would essentially be a trolley bus route traveling the downtown area, with the farthest stops being the Distillery District and National Avenue. Lextran has been looking for outside funding for this program from the City and downtown area business sponsors. Councilmember Brown is proposing to fund this pilot by pre-funding FY25 money.
Pre-funding is when extra money from one Fiscal Year is allocated toward a project for the next Fiscal Year. In this case, the City would have to find $250k of extra money from the current Fiscal Year and set it aside for this specific project.
The Community Action Council’s “Work Where You Live” workforce program will seek to provide funding to construction companies to train and mentor Lexington residents looking for work in the construction industry. Councilmember Brown has not submitted a proposed funding source for this request.
At-Large Councilmember Chuck Ellinger - $250,000 to Lextran for a microtransit pilot program.
Councilmember Ellinger has been supporting BUILD’s advocacy urging Lextran to implement a microtransit service. You can think of microtransit as a sort of publicly-funded Lyft/Uber rideshare service. You can find our past coverage of the microtransit discussion here.
Ellinger is proposing to use $250,000 in FY25 prefunding to support the pilot.
Lextran will present an overview of their Microtransit Feasibility Study in Council Work Session on June 3rd, which will provide more details on how an ongoing microtransit service could work and how much a service would cost to operate. Lextran has consistently said that they do not have the funding to implement a microtransit pilot program.
District 10 Councilmember Dave Sevigny - $630,000 to support and enhance Lexington’s technology economy.
Last year, Council funded a Technology Ecosystem Development Study that examined Lexington’s technology economy and looked for ways to increase job opportunities in tech. A presentation of this study will happen in June 24th’s Budget, Finance, and Economic Development Committee meeting.
Steps the study identified to improve the tech economy in Lexington include:
Creating a Lexington Tech Council to support new and existing local technology businesses ($300,000)
Creating career awareness and learning opportunities by connecting employees, businesses, and educational institutions ($90,000)
Boosting existing opportunities to support start-ups ($100,000)
Creating marketing and branding campaigns for Lexington’s tech economy ($140,000).
Councilmember Sevigny did not identify a funding source for this proposal.
District 11 Councilmember Jennifer Reynolds - $500,000 in additional funding for the Sidewalk Connectivity Program.
$1 million was allocated in the Mayor’s Proposed Budget for the Sidewalk Connectivity Program, which builds new sidewalks in areas of town where major sidewalk gaps exist. Councilmember Reynold’s request, if approved, would increase the total to $1.5 million.
The $1 million in the Mayor’s Proposed Budget was bonded, meaning that the City would be borrowing money for the program. Councilmember Reynolds did not specify a funding source for the program, but it could include increasing the bonding amount.
District 12 Councilmember Hil Boone - $94,500 in additional funding to repair Jack’s Creek Pike.
Jack’s Creek Pike, a road in rural Fayette County, was heavily damaged during the heavy rain storms in April.
Councilmember Boone did not specify a funding source for this proposal.
Together, all Link and individual requests total roughly $2.282 million. Of the requests, there are $1.476 million worth that Council would have to find additional money to support (Sevigny’s tech economy proposal, Brown’s Community Action Council proposal, Reynolds’s Sidewalk Connectivity increase, and Boone’s request for Jack’s Creek Pike repairs).
Council will vote on each one of these recommendations during next week’s Budget COW Meetings. It is unlikely that all of these recommendations and proposals will be added to the Budget. Council can approve the proposed changes, reject them, or mark them as items to come back to at a later date.
Often during Budget COWs, requests that were not funded in the Budget are revisited in the following October during the Fund Balance discussion and funded then.
You can review the packet for Tuesday’s Budget COW here.
The Budget Committee of the Whole Meetings will be held on Tuesday, May 27th, and Thursday, May 29th, at 10am in Council Chambers. You can attend both meetings in-person or watch live on LexTV.
