City finalizes fiscal 2021 budget

The Homewood City Council approved the fiscal 2021 city budget with $55.5 million in total revenues and in total expenditures.

The total sales tax revenue budgeted for fiscal 2021, which started Oct. 1 is $34.4 million, and $8.9 million of the sales tax budget will go to the Homewood City Schools Board of Education.

“At March of this year, before COVID hit, our sales tax was off the charts — better than anything we could have ever expected,” Finance Director Robert Burgett said. “And then it just stopped.”

Revenues were down for 2020, but Burgett said nonessential expenses were down considerably.

“I would say our departments have done a really good job of not spending nonessential money,” he said.

Some wage expenses are down, said City Clerk Melody Salter, because some part-time employees were laid off during the pandemic.

CAPITAL PROJECTS

The total revenues for the capital projects fund were $7.9 million. This included $2 million from the grants fund, $2 million from the general fund and $1.7 million from the carryover fund balance. The city budgeted $5.2 million in total capital expenses.

The budget showed a projected $2.1 million from sales and use taxes to go to the capital projects fund. But amid the pandemic, Councilman John Hardin expressed uncertainties about meeting that number in the upcoming fiscal year.

“In the past, it was easy to extrapolate what we’ve done in the past and what we can expect,” Hardin said at the Sept. 15 budget hearing. “We’re in such a strange time. But this is important for us to not have big expectations and then spend a bunch of money we don’t have.”

Burgett said in the past two months, though, the city’s sales taxes have “come back strong.”

“If I had to project on the last two months, I would say yes, we will easily make that number,” Burkett said at the Sept. 15 budget hearing.

The city plans to spend $1.4 million in fiscal 2021 on the Lakeshore Drive diverging diamond interchange capital project. This line item was reduced from $2.8 million because the city negotiated with the Alabama Department of Transportation to pay the remaining $1.4 million in fiscal 2022. A diverging diamond crosses traffic to the opposite side of the road at the bridge, which creates an opportunity for drivers to veer left onto the interstate without stopping. It also allows vehicles approaching Lakeshore from Interstate 65 off ramps to merge into traffic instead of waiting for a light.

The “turkey foot” intersection at Oxmoor Road and Oxmoor Boulevard has been a source of resident complaints for years. The city budgeted $210,000 for the engineering and design for this capital project.

The 18th Street beautification has $2.4 million budgeted for the west end and $460,000 budgeted for the east end. Work has already started on the east end of the street. By early October, trees were being planted, and ground-cover was being installed on that end.

The Samford Pocket Park had $200,000 budgeted in fiscal 2020, and this money was carried over to fiscal 2021. This is part of a nine-year agreement the city had with Samford University to create a small pocket park on university-owned property on Saulter Road.

The city also budgeted $87,560 in funding for Sims Garden, which is a community garden in Edgewood. Amy Milam, who is the full-time manager of the property, presented plans at the Sept. 10 budget hearing to do landscaping at the property and install a pathway compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Other capital expenses include the city’s traffic plan, improvements at Rosewood Hall, design costs for phase two of the Shades Creek Greenway, creek walls and the storm sewer and drainage. The Hollywood Boulevard pedestrian bridge project was not funded for fiscal 2021.

GENERAL FUND

The total Police Department budget for fiscal 2021 was about $11.5 million. Personnel services make up the largest portion of the police budget at almost $10 million. This category includes salaries, pensions and insurance for police.

In fiscal 2020, the Police Department budgeted $223,880 for electricity costs — a dramatic increase from the year before, which was $68,982 — in anticipation of its move to the new police building on Valley Avenue. The council budgeted $200,000 for electricity in the first budget draft for 2021, but after receiving a few electric bills, Homewood Police Chief Tim Ross said this number could be reduced to $185,000.

The total Fire Department budget for 2021 was $7.8 million. Most of that — $7 million— goes to personnel services.

Under “other expenses” in the general fund, the city was faced with decisions about cutting funding to outside organizations.

In the first draft of the budget, the line item for One Roof did not have any money budgeted toward it, and the city has funded a total of $15,000 to this organization since 2018. One Roof is a nonprofit in Birmingham that works to end homelessness. Ward 2 Representative Mike Higginbotham made a motion to continue funding $5,000 toward this organization, which was approved by the other City Councilmembers.

“If we need to cut X thousand dollars from these nondepartmental expenditures, I don’t have an objection to that,” Higginbotham said. “But I would prefer it at an approach that looked at it as what I would call shared pain, where we cut everyone a little bit rather than zeroing out an agency that does something other groups don’t begin to do.”

Matt Rich with the Homewood Environmental Commission spoke at the Sept. 10 budget meeting regarding the line item for mature tree planting. In the first draft of the budget, the city budgeted $6,304 for tree planting. However, for Homewood to keep its Tree City USA designation, it has to have a certain amount of expenditures in its tree budget. The council at the Sept. 10 meeting approved a $40,000 budget for mature tree planting.

The city in its first draft of the budget also reduced the funding to Red Mountain Park from $25,000 in fiscal 2020 to $15,000 in 2021. Higginbotham said this park was zeroed out of Birmingham’s upcoming budget. The park is on the border of Homewood, and Higginbotham said many Homewood residents visit the park, which doesn’t charge an admission fee. The council voted to restore the funding for Red Mountain Park to $25,000.

To help fund these organizations, the city voted to reduce The Birmingham Zoo funding from $25,000 to $10,000 in 2021.

The entire proposed budget worksheet can be viewed at the city’s website at cityofhomewood.com.