Jackson City Council Finance Committee Meeting on $23 Million Budget Deficit - March 25, 2026
Jackson City Council Finance Committee Meeting on $23 Million Budget Deficit - March 25, 2026
The Jackson City Council Finance Committee met on March 25, 2026, to address a $23 million general fund budget deficit and a separate $7 million water bill issue. CFO Jillian Caldwell and CAO Peter Taywerson presented a modernization plan to balance the budget by reducing spending and increasing efficiency. The committee discussed the first step of cutting $10.7 million by returning to FY25 actuals, with an additional $13 million in cuts needed. No votes were taken, but the council requested detailed data and agreed to continue deliberations in future meetings.
Discussion Items
- Budget Deficit Overview: CAO Taywerson described the city's "math problem"—a $23 million shortfall in the general fund (budgeted at $135 million, revenue at $112 million) and $7 million in unpaid water bills. He noted that no Mississippi municipality has attempted a deficit reduction of this size without federal aid.
- Modernization Plan Presentation: CFO Caldwell outlined a 12–18 month plan to modernize the city workforce, increase revenues, and reduce costs. Phase 1 includes triage and transparency, such as reducing travel, restoring the internal audit division, and paying prior invoices. Phase 2 focuses on restructuring and eliminating redundant positions. Phase 3 addresses asset management and real estate.
- First Round of Cuts ($10.7 million): The administration has already identified $10.7 million in savings by reducing department budgets to FY25 actuals. This includes $2.96 million from public works, $2.69 million from general government, $1.25 million from policing, and $1.29 million from administration, plus other departments. These cuts do not involve layoffs but rely on vacancies and reduced spending.
- Additional Savings Proposals: Potential further savings include $2.7 million from insurance fund adjustments, $2.96 million from public works (general fund reduction), and other line items totaling up to $13 million. Council members requested detailed breakdowns of these figures.
- Council Concerns and Requests: Council members questioned the accuracy of the numbers, noting a discrepancy between $10.4 million and $10.7 million (explained by a $300,000 adjustment for unbudgeted repairs). They asked for more detailed reports, including revenue composition, line-item cuts, and the impact on services. Councilman Foote raised concerns about the Jackson Redevelopment Authority (JRA), which owns 90 vacant properties and receives $600,000 annually from the city, suggesting the city should take back and sell those properties. CAO Taywerson confirmed JRA will appear at the April council meeting.
- Other Revenue/Expense Ideas: Discussion included an amnesty week for court fines to generate revenue, auctioning surplus assets, reviewing contracts, and increasing employee health insurance contributions to save $2.75 million. Councilman Hartley emphasized the need to grow revenue, not just cut spending.
- Current Financial Status: CFO Caldwell reported that revenues are slightly ahead of last year (sales tax up 600,000 year-to-date), and expenses are under budget, but the full-year deficit remains.
Key Outcomes
- No Vote Taken: The committee did not vote on any budget amendments. The presentation was informational, and the council will continue discussions in a series of future meetings.
- Data Requests: The administration will provide detailed breakdowns of the $10.7 million in cuts, the composition of general fund revenue, specific reduction proposals for the remaining $13 million, and a list of general fund appropriations to other funds. Council members also requested better monthly financial reports with running balances.
- Future Meetings: The council plans to schedule additional meetings to work through the full $23 million reduction, ideally completing the process by the end of April. The administration will provide data in advance of these meetings.
- JRA Oversight: CAO Taywerson confirmed that JRA representatives will appear at the April 7th work session and April 14th council meeting to address concerns about vacant properties and spending.
- Next Steps: The council will collaborate with the administration to finalize the budget adjustments, aiming to balance the FY26 budget and set a foundation for FY27.
Meeting Transcript
Good afternoon. It's approximately 106, and we'll call the order the finance committee meeting for the city of Jackson City Council. Are there any announcements? If no announcements, we'll go with the planned um presentation by CFO Caldwell. Madam Chair, may I offer a couple of remarks to kind of set the table for the endeavor we're pursuing? Okay. Madam Committee Chair, Council Members, Peter Taywerson, CAO. Please allow me a couple of minutes to outline the task before us. Jackson has a math problem, except there is no textbook for what we are about to pursue. That is reducing a municipal general fund budget by some 23 million dollars while also resolving another $7 million in water bills. And we have but a few months to pull this off. No municipality in the state of Mississippi has attempted to close a budget deficit of this size, a true $30 million dilemma. The only cities that have faced anything like what we are facing are the coast cities after Katrina and Jackson after the flood of 1979. But we are not receiving a federal bailout. Today should serve as your introduction to the city's modernization discussions that address the math problem by balancing the budget while establishing a foundation for growing Jackson over what we anticipate will be a series of committee meetings. You will drill down while we show you what math will and will not work for your priorities. As the governing authorities, you will ultimately decide which math best fits your priorities, and we will implement those priorities. So please view today as the first of several honest needed conversations that seek to balance the needs of the community with the economic reality of too many square miles and too few people, but never lose sight of the axioms that we cannot implement what we cannot fund, and we cannot spend what we do not have. On behalf of the CFO and her team, as well as myself, we ask for your patience and temperance as we collectively work through the crucial conversations necessary for you, the governing authorities, to make the best of difficult decisions. Is this a presentation that we're gonna get a copy of, or is it strictly what we're gonna see? Yes, you'll get a copy. Okay. In the future, any presentations that deal with numbers, can we have them before you present them? Yes. Thank you, Jillian Caldwell, CFO. Um we'll get started on our presentation. Go make one slide. So this is our um our plan to modernize the city of Jackson, and we're presenting it to you to get um your approval to move forward with some of these decisions and to make some of the decisions that'll be needed to put us into a better financial position. Our plan um we we're expecting it to take a little over 12 to 18 months to um fully realize the impact that uh of this plan, and right now we see ourselves as being uh pretty much six months into this situation. Um, for the last six months, we have really been digging through our re uh revenues and our expenses and just trying to right size, you know, the ship and and do things in a more efficient manner. The uh uh one of the first um tasks that we have is to balance the budget. Um we've realized that the budget that was adopted um last fall was approximately 24 million dollars over the budgeted revenues that we um foresee coming in this fiscal year, and so we want to bring the budget back into balance. And the goal here, of course, is to modernize our workforce, um being more efficient in everything that we touch and do and restore public trust and build a fiscal foundation that supports long-term investment, yeah. And so, as I just um just mentioned, our budget was adopted at 135 million, and our actual anticipated revenue is scheduled to be 112 million, which is a 23 million dollar shortfall. Budgeting, go let's go back one second. Budgeting beyond the revenue is not sustainable. Um, in the past, the only way it happened is because we were able to you know utilize some of our fund balance in prior years to be able to function how we have we no longer have that option. The fund balance is no longer at a in a position where it can allow us to continue to operate outside of our actual revenues that we're receiving, and of course, that's in direct violation of state statute as uh CAO Taywison mentioned. This is a math problem. Um approximately 20 years ago we had over 200,000 residents, and now we have less than 150,000, and so we have to modify our budget to flow with those changes the sales tax revenue has declined um for from years ago, uh 20 years ago, we have seen a decline in our sales tax revenue, and we have seen uh an inflation in our cost for the goods and services that we're paying for for the city. Yes, sir. So what is the break dollar of sales tax revenue? How much standard sales tax and how much modernization so this does not include any modernization? However, our sales tax is approximately two million a month, and our um modernization sales tax dollars are a little over a million. Thank you. So thank you. That's just five minutes. Yes, and so to all that's on that, but that's just five minutes. Well, to bring it into perspective, um, a large part of what we're discussing today is the general fund, and your modernization funds are only designated for the purposes designated for that fund. Yes, sir.
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