This was the third budget hearing for the 2026 city budget, focusing on the priority area of community health and vitality. Departments presented included Community and Family Resources (CFRD), Parks and Recreation, Public Works (Animal Care and Control, Sanitation), and City of Bloomington Utilities (CBU). Key discussions centered on budget constraints from Senate Enrolled Act 1, the removal of $300,000 in DEI training funding due to legal concerns, and efforts to maintain services despite fiscal challenges. No votes were taken; the hearing was for presentation and public comment.
Seeing that we have a forum, I'd like to call to order this budget hearing for Monday, August 25th, 2025. And as you can tell by my voice, I'm not doing so great as far as uh vocalizing tonight. So I'm going to um ask my colleague, Councilmember Rollo to chair this meeting. Um, but in the meantime, we can do a roll call, please, Clerk Bolden. Councilmember Ruff. Rallo? Here. Piedmont Smith? Here. Stasberg. Daly. Here. Zulik? Here. Rosenbarger? Here. Sorry. Thank you. Okay, tonight is our third budget hearing in August and August 25th. And we have the following topics this evening. Priority area introduction, community health and vitality, and then we have various departments community and family resources department, parks and recreation department, department of public works, which includes animal care and control division, sanitation division, and the city of Bloomington utilities. So can we begin with the priority area introduction, community health and vitality. Mayor Thompson. Welcome. Thank you. Mayor Thomson, and I'm gonna kick this off and pass it on to Deputy Mayor Knapp. I wanted to frame tonight's first topic by pointing out that it has long been the city's philosophy to universally support those who live here in Bloomington, no matter who they are. That through line has not changed. We are not wavering one bit on our values here in Bloomington. We know people care deeply about Bloomington's values, and so do we. That's why this matters. We have a fiscal reality that we're all facing, though. The funds that were used to fund the DEI training that was removed from this year's budget were one-time funds from ARPA. SEA one has further changed the funding landscape for every city in Indiana. Bloomington is not exempt from this. We have less money to work with. Revenues are tighter, so the 2026 budget must reflect that new reality. We've heard comments suggesting Bloomington is backing away from its commitments to opportunity for all. What we can't do is spend $300,000 of money that we no longer have on a one-size-fits-all training. What we will always do is keep improving how we serve residents, no matter what the budget. Thank you. I'll pass it on to Deputy Knapp. Deputy Mayor Gretchen Knapp. So what's included in the allocations that were shown in the program budget in terms of dollars, departments and divisions whose mission is largely centered in this work, CFRD, Parks and Rec, Animal Care Control, Sanitation, and CBU. There are a lot of departments and offices that also have known costs that fit under this category of community health and vitality. Common Council has the Jack Hopkins Fund, ESD has a lot of sustainable uh sustainability programming and arts programming, hands neighborhood vitality programming a portion of planning, all of that could be considered here, but those departments have already presented as we are only having each department present once. All of that could be considered here, but those departments have already presented, as we are only having each department present once. It's a very broad range of programs in here. And as we had a great meeting with the fiscal committee last week, talking about, you know, what are our next steps? How where do we go from here?