Lexington’s new city budget gives workers a bonus, closes a pool and raises a fee

The Lexington council voted Thursday to approve a $379 million budget that includes a one-time bonus payment for most city employees, 15 percent cuts to many spending areas and closure of one city pool.

Councilman Richard Moloney was the only member of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council to vote against the budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Moloney has said he has concerns about diverting money from a $11.2 million fund set aside to pay for increased pension costs to fund one-time bonus payments to city employees. Moloney has said he doesn’t oppose the bonus but thinks the city should find another way to pay for it.

Mayor Linda Gorton has 10 days to veto any changes the council made to her budget proposal. Gorton said Thursday she was still looking at the changes and has not yet made any decisions on vetoes.

The budget is lean compared to prior years as growth in the city’s revenue — tax and fee collections — has slowed compared to prior years and expenses continue to grow.

The budget includes 15 percent cuts to many partner agencies and spending areas within government. It also includes closing one of the city’s seven pools — Picadome. There is no money for new hires.

The budget includes more than $15.4 million in bonding or borrowing. That’s the least amount the city has borrowed since 2013 and much lower than the current-year budget of $45 million in borrowing.

The city will also have much less money to pave roads in the coming year. The proposed paving budget of $8 million is approximately $3 million less than what the city typically spends on paving.

The council made several changes to Gorton’s budget proposal, including giving $850,000 to the Hope Center to run an emergency homeless shelter for men. Gorton’s staff had asked the Hope Center to apply for funding through the city’s $3 million extended social resource grant program, which funds other homeless shelters.

The council ultimately decided to allocate the $850,000 to the Hope Center because the nonprofit has a 99-year-lease with the city to run the city-owned shelter building on Loudon Avenue.

Other changes included doing away with 12 days of furlough for many of Gorton’s staff and adding the one-time bonus pay for most city employees. Gorton’s budget proposal had not included any raises for city employees who are not covered by police and fire union contracts.

The council also added $340,000 to the city parks budget to restore funding for swim team programs, police patrol in parks and additional mowing. The budget also includes $837,755 for new voting machines. Many of the current eSlate machines are more than a decade old. The clunky wheel-style voting machines were partly to blame for long lines at many polling places in November.

Also on Thursday, the council voted unanimously to approve an increase in building permit fees for residential housing. The increase in those permit fees is expected to generate an additional $400,000 a year, which is included in the new budget. The city had not raised its complicated building permit fee structure in more than a decade.

Council members who voted to approve the budget: Vice Mayor Steve Kay, Jake Gibbs, Jennifer Reynolds, Susan Lamb, Amanda Bledsoe, James Brown, Kathy Plomin, Jennifer Mossotti, Bill Farmer Jr., Chuck Ellinger II, Angela Evans, Fred Brown, Preston Worley, Josh McCurn.

This story was originally published June 21, 2019 at 10:12 AM.