With two weeks to spare before fiscal year 2020 begins on July 1st, the Atlanta City Council on Monday unanimously approved Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’ $677.6 million FY2020 budget.
With an emphasis on public safety, transparency, transportation infrastructure and ethics, the budget reflects many of the issues the Bottoms administration has pushed since first taking office in 2018. It also seeks to perhaps quiet the murmurings that she has come up short in some of those areas – such as appointing unqualified staffers to high profile positions, denying external investigations into her office, or closing city jails despite a rising violent crime rate.
Said Bottoms on the budget’s approval, “A budget should reflect your priorities and this budget shows our commitment to One Atlanta – an affordable, resilient and equitable Atlanta – with an ethical, transparent, and fiscally responsible government,” said Mayor Bottoms. “It not only invests in our city’s future but further builds on the progress of preserving Atlanta as a world-class city.”
Highlights of the budget, which for the second consecutive year includes no new tax increases, are below:
- An additional $5 million for the Atlanta Police Department for salaries and resources;
- $4.9 million in additional resources for the Atlanta Fire Rescue Department
- A 3.1% pay increase for all sworn personnel in the Atlanta Fire Rescue Department. This increase replicates the Phase One pay increase model of the Atlanta Police Department that was initiated in FY 19;
- 3.1% pay increases for 911 Dispatchers.
- A total $21.3 million for resurfacing, pothole repairs and sidewalk construction programs;
- Additional $2.8 million for parks, greenspace and recreation centers;
- $3 million to drive progress on affordability, resilience and equity;
- Funding to implement the City’s living-wage policy increase to $15 an hour;
- Initial funding of $750,000 to begin establishing the City of Atlanta Department of Transportation;
- $250,000 to combat HIV/AIDS
- $800,000 towards the standing up of the Office of Independent Compliance. This expanded organizational unit deepens the Bottoms Administration’s commitment to ethics and transparency as it looks forward to the recommendations of the Task Force for the Promotion of Public Trust;
Of note; the initial funding for the establishment of the City of Atlanta Department of Transportation will go towards the continued development of a strategic transportation plan to “set key goals and accountability measures for the new agency.”
Once fully set up, the Atlanta DOT will combine with the the Department of Public Works to work on road projects including repairs and maintenance, installation of signs and lights, and accessibility. The Renew Atlanta Bond/TSPLOST’s road improvement plan has become backlogged, so the hope is that a new agency focused solely on those projects could speed up the process.
