Louisville Metro Council’s proposed amendments to next year’s budget include cuts to affordable housing and increased spending on public parks.
Metro Council has spent the past two months digging into Mayor Craig Greenberg’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2026, which goes into effect July 1. The council’s Budget Committee released its list of dozens of changes this week ahead of a final vote on Thursday night.
One of the largest proposed changes is a $2.5 million cut to what Greenberg wanted to allocate to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Created by city officials in 2007, the trust fund provides loans and grants to affordable housing developers. Metro Council’s proposal is to drop next year’s funding to $12.5 million, versus the $15 million the fund got this year.
Some Metro Council members, like Jennifer Chappell, have pushed back against that. At a special committee meeting Monday night, the District 17 Democrat said affordable housing, Louisville Metro Animal Services and the public bus system, TARC, were the highest priorities for residents who filled out a public budget survey this year.
“Given that there’s no additional money to TARC [in the amendments] and we’ve seen decreases in those other two budgets, I can kind of say that we aren’t really listening to what the people want,” Chappell said.
If approved, it would be the first time Metro Council pulled back on a mayor’s proposed funding for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. It would also be the first time since 2020 that the city allocated less money to the trust fund than it did the year prior.
Louisville’s funding for affordable housing has steadily increased over the last decade, as the housing crisis has become more acute nationally. A recent assessment found Louisville needs more than 36,000 housing units that are affordable to its poorest residents.
In 2014, the city was putting about $1 million per year into the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. That increased to $2.5 million in 2017. By the time former Mayor Greg Fischer left office in 2022, the city’s annual contribution to the trust fund was $10 million.
Greenberg has proposed $15 million for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund every year since he took office in 2023.
Metro Council Budget Chair Kevin Kramer said he and his Republican colleagues wanted to step back and look at how the trust fund has dealt with the influx of funding in recent years. In addition to the $2.5 million cut, the council’s will require the trust fund to provide a rundown of their current projects and evaluate different approaches, like revolving loans versus subsidies.
“They’ve just had a lot of cash coming in over the last three years and that can get overwhelming,” Kramer said. “So what we’re doing is just saying, ‘Hold on. Let’s see where the money is, see what the programs are, let’s see what’s working.’”
Trust fund officials will have to provide the results of their self-assessment to Metro Council by Nov. 30, according to the draft budget.
Asked about Metro Council’s proposed cut, Greenberg said at a press conference Tuesday that he has tried to set a new standard when it comes to affordable housing creation.
“And I was trying to push that [$15 million] year over year,” he said. “Metro Council is apparently not there yet, I acknowledge that, but I want to keep this momentum going, so I support the budget in its current form.”
Greenberg highlighted other investments he’s proposed in the 2026 budget, like a $1.1 million investment in the city’s Homeless Initiative Fund and another $1 million to expand 24/7 shelter beds at the Neighborhood Place and St. Vincent de Paul.
“When taken in its entirety, this budget does a significant amount to move our housing initiatives forward,” he said.
Where’s the money going?
In addition to the $2.5 million cut to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, Metro Council is also proposing to axe Greenberg’s plan to set aside $3 million for a new public transportation hub. Greenberg said in April that TARC wants to move to a spoke-hub system, where most or all of the bus lines would travel through a central facility downtown.
The decision to cut that proposed funding, Kramer said, was a practical matter.
“What we realized fairly quickly is that finding a piece of property in Downtown Louisville for $3 million was not going to be so simple,” he said. “The second thing is, Louisville Metro already owns a lot of property downtown, so we’re going to look and see if there’s any property we already own that meets that need.”
Kramer said Metro Council leadership felt the city wasn’t likely to “pull the trigger” on purchasing a property for TARC in the next year, so it didn’t make sense to have $3 million sitting around when it could be spent on other projects.
So, where is that money going?
It’s a tough question to answer, because the budget has hundreds of line items. A cut in one place isn’t necessarily tied to an increase somewhere else.
Metro Council is not proposing to significantly increase the size of the city’s operating budget or the capital budget, which is funded through grants and borrowing. So, any new spending is coming, in whole or in part, from reductions elsewhere.
The cuts to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund and the TARC transit hub are the two largest decreases in the capital budget proposed by Metro Council, totaling about $5.5 million. The largest proposed increase, meanwhile, is $6 million in funding for a first responder training center.
The city would use that funding to acquire land for the training center, which would be used by LMPD, Louisville Fire and Emergency Medical Services. The proposed budget language specifies that the city must look for land in southwest Jefferson County.
Kramer said land in that part of Louisville Metro is affordable and residents there have demanded more of a police presence.
“Anything that we can do that would send police officers in and out of the community would increase the police presence there, at least increase the visibility,” he said.
Actually building out a first responder training center is going to require support from the state.
Greenberg said earlier this year that he didn’t include funding for the center in his proposed budget for that reason. But Republicans on Metro Council have argued that the city needs to show the commonwealth that the training center is a priority.
Metro Council also wants to include new investments in housing programs, local nonprofits and deferred maintenance in public parks.
The budget for the Office of Social Services would increase by $3.2 million dollars, under the current proposal, with funding going to the Bluegrass Center for Autism, Dare to Care and the Arthur Street Hotel, among other agencies.
Metro Council is proposing to increase the Office of Parks and Recreation budget by about $400,000. There’s new funding for the Louisville Youth Football League, improvements at the Valley Station baseball field and a full-time staff position at the Playtorium in Fairdale.
The council is expected to attach the full list of amendments to the agenda for Thursday night when it’s available. The Metro Council meeting will begin at 6 p.m. at City Hall. It is open to the public.
Andrea Galliano contributed reporting.
