Photo by Solomon Crenshaw Jr.
Homewood Councilman Chris Lane during a City Council work session on Monday, Sept. 28, 2026.
The Homewood City Council on Monday night approved a $77 million general fund budget for fiscal 2027, which begins Oct. 1.
The budget was down slightly from the $77.9 million in spending first proposed by City Manager Cale Smith in August.
Smith on Monday night expressed gratitude to the mayor and council for their support and input in the creation of the budget.
“I just wanted to take a second to thank each of you for all the work that you put into the budget hearings and understanding the budget,” Smith said. “We met for hours. My goal was when we started for it to be transparent to you guys, for you to really be able to understand how we were spending money, how we were receiving money. Whatever questions you had, I wanted to be able to answer. The same goes for the community.
“I wanted to be a transparent process for them,” the city manager continued. “Based on the amount of questions that we had over the past few weeks, I think that we were successful. Certainly, just the amount of time and energy that you guys put into this over the past six to eight weeks, I appreciate it. We learned a lot. Next year, the process will probably look a lot different.”
Councilman Chris Lane acknowledged that monthly financial statements will be presented to the council “just so we'll stay abreast as a council each month to check out the financials.
“Things will change,” Lane said. “(Smith) advised that, and we recommended also to pay closer attention to our finances and not to get … what happened years back.”
One of the biggest changes in the budget since Smith first presented it 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 council heard from our community,” Andress said. “We worked together with Chief (Tim) Ross and with our city manager to add the three officers.”
The council also on Monday night approved the use of a new spending and purchasing platform. This will reportedly improve management, tracking and documentation of department expenditures.
“We are not increasing the number of credit cards,” Andress said. “In fact, we’re decreasing the number of credit cards. It’s an improvement over what we’re doing as far as reimbursements.”
In other business, the council:
- Approved a budget amendment to purchase OpenGov financial software
- Rezoned the western portion of 1832 25th Court S., comprising 2,079 square feet from an I-2 institutional district to a neighborhood preservation district
- Established an evaluation form for the city manager’s job
- Approved the commemoration of a mural rendering done by Fitz Signs & Murals
- Authorized the city manager to execute a contract with the Homewood Chamber of Commerce for fiscal 2027
- Appointed Maranda Dancy, Kandace VanWanderham and Beverly LeBouef to the city’s abatement board
- Appointed Madeline Koonce, Gary Johnson, David Bains, Eddie Griffith, Julie Muir and Josh Alford to the Homewood Historic Preservation Commission
