On May 26, 2026, the Chattanooga City Council held a work session to discuss agency funding, early learning after‑school care, a community land trust proposal, economic development incentives for quantum computing, and a future budget policy resolution. Key speakers included Budget Chair Henderson, Chief of Staff (the Chief), Councilmembers Clark, Hill, Harvey, Knowles, and others. The meeting also featured presentations from the Tennessee Valley Community Land Trust board and Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise (CNE).
Can you get approval of minutes because we don't have quorum? So we'll just go ahead and get started on agencies. We've got a agenda in front of you this afternoon for this afternoon. Agency funding, early learning after school care, community land trust, follow-up, economic development demonstration, and then if Councilman Harvey shows up, I think we'll talk about a budget policy resolution. So Chief, I'm gonna turn it over to you for agency funding proposals. Great. Thank you, budget chair, appreciate it. Good morning, Council. How are y'all? Morning. Um so just to kind of remind folks where we are on this. In in the initial proposal that the mayor put forward, we had a hold for agency funding. That's what I'm referencing when I say a 2407 up at the top. That hold was for four million dollars. Um in the last couple weeks been working with with many of you on this list, just talking through the different organizations and initiatives that we're proposing to fund. And so what this represents is the latest and greatest version that I think that I'm hopeful accomplishes um what we've funding for what we view as as kind of the critical civic infrastructure that we initially put forward um as well as some net new items that I want to highlight. So at the top, um, this is strictly out of that A2407 four million dollars. Um the only change relative to the first iteration of this document is that the Chattanooga Regional Homeless Coalition came in at 861 as we've been working. Our finance team has been working with them directly. Um we had we had held 880, but it came in at 861. Um, and then I've added transform ministries at 50,000, which is the last item in that first section. Um this is for a program called End Zone. Um this is um Joe Smith's group and and they work with at-risk children um and after school from ages 10 to 14, and so this is operational support for that program. Um this is a request that came in from Chairman Davis. And and then at the bottom, the reason that I just pulled these out is because I want to explain how we're proposing to fund these. Um these other four items. So the grocery store incentive program that we intend to set up through the IDB for 150,000 to try to um encourage a grocery store development in uh one of our uh most severe food deserts in town. Um we're gonna fund that from we're proposing to fund that rather from the economic development reserve fund. Also dropping down to the bottom of this list at the bottom is you'll see preserve Chattanooga. This was a request that we came in that that came in that was originally not included in our initial proposal, um, but one that has been advocated for and we would like to support them. We we can fund it through the economic development fund as well. This this money will be used to help um spin up the their operations a little bit by um helping them fund for one year a a staffer um who is going to come up with their permanent plan to uh to retain that funding. And then jumping back up to the second item in this bottom tranche, you'll see again this is the extended child care James A. Henry. So 75,000 of the 200,000 cost is gonna come from a 2407, and then we're proposing to fund the balance from ARPA. You may recall from last year's budget. We set aside a a kind of like a contingency allocation from ARPA that we thought that we may need to use to support operations as they were transitioning to James A. Henry. We did not end up needing to use that, and so this is a reallocation of those dollars, so it's a reallocation of a re of a reallocation. Um, and then net new underneath that one is Grace Impact Center. Uh we're proposing to fund this one at 200,000. This is a another violence intervention initiative. Um this is a request from Councilman Clark and would serve the Brainerd Middle and that neighborhood. Councilman Clark, would you be willing to share a little bit more about that? Absolutely. Um we have we our current violence reduction initiative that we fund through community haven't has a footprint that's only identified in one particular council area out of pretty, I would say pretty hefty amount. Uh this Grace Impact Center has a program called the Opportunity Development Initiative that will focus in some of the hot spot that overlaps District 9 in the East Elk community and the Woodmore community around Brainerd High School and Tiner High School. We felt that there was a need, Brainerd High School in one year saw six, nine black boys killed due to gang violence out of their high school in one school year. And I currently we don't have any programs, including the Curve Program or Community Haven in that hot spot working to do violence reduction initiative. So the mayor's office has been so kind to fund this at a level as a pilot program starting in August that'll be working at our community centers, Brainerd High School and Tyner uh middle school as a violence interrupter with high schoolers, uh, which is where we see the origins of gang activities and violence that oftentimes spread into our streets.