Photo from city of Homewood website
Homewood City Hall in Homewood, Alabama
The Homewood City Council plans to vote on the city’s fiscal 2027 general fund budget when it meets on Monday.
The proposed spending from the general fund is $77.1 million, which is down slightly from the $77.9 million in proposed spending that was presented in August.
There have been some changes in the budget since City Manager Cale Smith first presented his budget proposal in August.
One of the biggest changes is the restoration of some of the funding that had been cut for the Police Department, including funding for three police officers.
The original 2027 budget proposed had cut police personnel funding by nearly $900,000 by cutting six positions.
There were 90 police officers budgeted in 2026, and Smith’s original budget had only 84 officers proposed. There were two vacancies before a citywide hiring freeze went into effect this spring. Four more officers took early retirement this summer, Mayor Jennifer Andress said.
The proposed cuts to the Police Department were criticized by some members of the community.
“The council heard from our community,” Andress said. “We worked together with Chief (Tim) Ross and with our city manager to add the three officers that you see that will be in the budget that we'll vote on Monday night.”
The budget also includes a 1% cost of living adjustment for city employees.
Another big change in the budget was that city officials decided to start a trust for retiree benefits in fiscal 2026 instead of fiscal 2027, Smith said.
“We went ahead and did that this year, and that took $1 million out of the (2027) budget, he said.
Also, the 2027 capital budget was reduced by $1.5 million when construction on Saulter Road sidewalks was removed. Engineering and design for that project, which costs $200,000, remains in the budget proposal.
The capital budget also includes a stormwater project on Huntington Road and a public works facility. “It's like a big garage, basically, that we can park vehicles up under to get them out of the weather,” Smith said.
To fund the $77.1 million in general fund expenditures, Smith is proposing to take $3.2 million from the city’s fund balance because expenditures in 2027 will exceed revenues for the year.
It’s good that Homewood over the years has accumulated financial resources that are available for future spending or emergencies, Smith said. It’s fine to use the fund balance for one-time purchases such as vehicles, buildings or projects, but using the fund balance to support the general fund is not the best way to balance a budget, he said.
“We are living outside of our means because we're using fund balance,” he said.
“It's really tough to use it to supplement the general fund because at that point, you're using fund balance to really support staff and personnel and expenses inside the general fund, which is bad practice,” the city manager said. “If I pay you to work here and I'm using fund balance to pay you, then I'm going to have to probably do the same thing next year.”
Thankfully, the city has had a good couple of years where it hasn’t had to pull money from the fund balance to support operations because the city brought in more revenue than was projected, he said.
The council conducted its final budget hearing on Thursday. The 40-minute session didn’t yield any calls for changes to the latest version of the budget.
“I was pretty pleased with what he (Smith) presented with those adjustments to the sidewalk reduction and … the legal services,” Councilman Paul Simmons II said. “In addition to adding the three police officers, in my opinion, we're going in the right direction. We've got a lot to work on, but this is a starting point.”
The Homewood City Council’s agenda for Monday also includes public hearings on Samford University’s request to add two six-story student housing buildings on the south side of Lakeshore Drive and another zoning request to add a miniature golf and outdoor entertainment facility called The Woods at 504 Scott St. in West Homewood.
The City Council has a work session planned for 5 p.m. Monday and an action meeting following at 6 p.m.
