Revised Budgets Clear Council Committee

by Gabe BullardThe Louisville Metro Council's Budget Committee has finished revising the mayor's proposed operating and capital budgets for the next fiscal year.Through land sales, revised revenue forecasts and other means, the council found an addition 5.9 million dollars to spend in the budgets. The committee passed amendments Wednesday allocating all but about 3 million of those dollars. Committee chair Jim King says the leftover funds are not entirely secure and should not be counted on to fund city operations."Clearly we haven't spent everything we forecasted in revenue because we don't think it's advisable to do that," he says. "We think this is a wise budget, a prudent budget, and this amendment represents roughly one tenth of one percent of the overall general fund budget."The committee allocated an additional one million dollars to external agencies. The money mostly goes to agencies that saw their city funding reduced in the proposed budget and lobbied the council for more money. Committee vice chair Kelly Downard says a full restoration of previous funds was impossible."Nobody will be totally happy, and yet we hope that many will understand the difficult process we went through and be satisfied with what we tried to do," he says.The full council will vote on the revised budgets Thursday.