Tag: Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin
JeffCo Commissioners Call for Change in Combating Violence as Mayor Woodfin Attends White House Signing
In the wake of a mass shooting that killed four and injured 17 others Saturday night, members of the Jefferson County Commission called for change in combating violence in the metro area. Read more.
Birmingham Residents Cite Street Paving, Blight and the Neglect of Communities Among Budget Concerns
Birmingham residents who attended a budget hearing Monday night expressed concerns about many of the issues they said they bring up every year, including street paving, blight and the neglect of less prosperous communities.
They weren’t debating line-items in a budget proposal for fiscal 2025 because there isn’t one. As Birmingham Council President Darrell O’Quinn explained, for the time being, the spending plan for next year is identical to this year’s budget. City officials are using the $554 million 2024 budget as a stand-in for the coming year to allow staff to catch up on work lost due to what the city called a computer network disruption, which several news organizations have reported as a ransomware attack. Read more.
New Pilot Program Will Offer Housing, Resources to People Leaving Prison
The Birmingham Reentry Alliance will provide wrap-around services to dozens of men and women adjusting to life after prison. Read more.
Woodfin’s Strategic Update Touts Progress in Neighborhood Improvement, Food Deserts, Gun Violence, Parks, Education, Homelessness and the Arts
When Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin gave an update on the city’s initiatives Thursday, he asked the crowd at the Birmingham Museum of Art’s auditorium to view that progress through the eyes of one mother or grandmother and the many tangible ways life has improved for her and her family since he took office.
“Everything we’ve done has been to increase opportunities for our children and grandchildren,” he said. “That really drives what we do at City Hall. That drives this administration. That is the heartbeat of what we do for our children, for our grandchildren.”
Back in 2017, the mayor said, that grandmother would look out her front door and see dilapidated or vacant homes next door, a cracked sidewalk and roads dotted with potholes. Six years ago, that woman’s grandchildren didn’t have a playground nearby, and the family lived miles away from a store selling fresh vegetables. And worst of all, he said, she and her grandchildren would often hear gunshots throughout the night.
“By the end of our first term, here is what we did for that mother; here is what we did for that grandmother,” the mayor said. Read more.
Birmingham Sets Up New Police Advisory Committee
Birmingham Randall Woodfin on Tuesday announced the formation of a Public Safety Advisory Committee to conduct an assessment of police operations, review community complaints, bring transparency to police operations and hold the police department accountable for its actions.
The first meeting of the committee will be Thursday on the second floor of City Hall and is open to the public.
The committee formation comes after the city in 2021 formed a Civilian Review Board, but it never got to the point of publicly dealing with community complaints. Read more.
Mayor-Council Act, Which Tilted Power Toward Mayor, Still Under Fire 7 Years After Adoption
The Birmingham City Council approved Mayor Randall Woodfin’s proposed budget for the 2024 fiscal year last week. It was the culmination of the city’s most contentious budgeting process in years. Since Woodfin took office in 2017, almost all of his budgets have passed without any alterations from the council, thanks mostly to state legislation from 2016 that took away their ability to do so.
The Mayor-Council Act is the state law governing the separation of powers between the branches of Birmingham’s municipal government, but some argue that changes to the bill approved the year before Woodfin took office have shifted that balance of power too heavily toward the executive. Read more.
Bham Budget Passed After Compromise With Councilors; Concerns Remain About the Power of the Mayor’s Office
Birmingham’s most contentious budgeting process in years ended Tuesday with the City Council’s unanimous approval of Mayor Randall Woodfin’s $554.8 million FY 2024 budget.
Having extracted a rare compromise from the mayor’s office — nearly half a million dollars redirected from street paving to code enforcement — councilors adopted a conciliatory tone.
“I think all of us came away feeling better than we felt before,” said District 3 Councilor Valerie Abbott. Earlier she had complained, “We’re doing all the glitzy things that are so cool. Well, I’m sorry, I’m tired of cool. I would just like for some things to get done.”
Councilor Hunter Williams clarified Tuesday that he wasn’t talking about the current mayor when he said last week that state legislators had created “a little king,” but he still worried that the current system under a different mayor could result in no checks and balances in city government. Read more.
With Increased Revenue, Woodfin’s Budget Proposal Targets Neighborhoods, Youth, Pay Raises and Transportation
Mayor Randall Woodfin revealed his proposed budget for the 2024 fiscal year on Tuesday, highlighting its “laser focus commitment” on neighborhood revitalization and youth support services.
The proposed $554.8 million budget is significantly larger than last year’s $522.3 million budget, thanks in part to projected increases in business tax revenue (up $12.3 million from last year) and property tax revenue (up $2.8 million). But Woodfin’s proposed budget reflects few differences in priority from the previous year. Read more.
Birmingham Council Passes Woodfin’s Budget Untouched; Police, Public Works, Youth Programs Biggest Winners
The Birmingham City Council has approved Mayor Randall Woodfin’s operating budget for the 2023 fiscal year. The vote, which happened during Tuesday’s regularly scheduled council meeting, was surprisingly low-key; the budget was approved with a slate of other routine items as part of the council’s consent agenda, with no changes from the budget Woodfin proposed last month.
That lack of controversy has become routine for the once-fraught budgeting process because of 2016 changes in the state’s Mayor-Council Act that prevent the council from altering the proposed budget without the mayor’s approval. While Woodfin had made mild compromises with the council over budgets at the beginning of his first term, his last two budgets were passed without any changes from his proposals.
At $517 million, the budget is the city’s largest ever, marking a $61.5 million increase from last year, thanks to a significant increase in business tax and licensing revenues. Read more.
Woodfin’s Budget Proposal Would Increase Police Funding, Fund City Pay Raises, Neighborhood Revitalization, Transportation and Other Services
Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin presented his “whopping” FY 2023 budget proposal to the City Council on Tuesday, describing it as a reflection of “an unprecedented time of investment and growth” for the city.
The $517 million budget is up roughly $61.5 million from last year’s budget, which at the time was the city’s largest-ever. Most of that money, Woodfin said, came from increases in business tax revenues — particularly business license revenue, which are projected to rise $23 million compared to last year. As a result, Woodfin said, “appropriations are up across the board.”
Roughly two-thirds of the budget would go toward personnel costs — a priority for Woodfin’s administration during the COVID-19 pandemic. Neighborhood revitalization, another of the mayor’s key issues, is also a focus, with $2 million earmarked for blight removal, $1.5 million for weed abatement and $15 million for street resurfacing.
The biggest increase in revenue would go to the Birmingham Police Department, which would receive $118.5 million — up $18 million from last year. Read more.
