The Tuscaloosa City Council held a budget hearing on September 2, 2025, beginning at approximately 1:30 PM. The meeting focused on department budgets for Arts and Entertainment, CFG (Construction Facilities and Grounds), the Office of the City Engineer (OCE), Public Works, Human Resources, Urban Development, and Strategic Communications. Key discussions included the financial outlook for the Mercedes-Benz Amphitheater, the Saban Center project's capital and operating plans, staffing challenges in public works and CFG, and the city's evolving role in park maintenance.
Phil. We'll be here about two hours and a half, two hours and fifteen minutes this morning. I noticed from some of the spaces, some of you aren't presenting. I appreciate you being here. It may pick up something. Thanks for that. We're gonna go through some of the staff sections today. I have reserved some of the staff sections to be spread out over the open space on finance agenda. Um I think it's the ninth and the 16th. So if you didn't get your turn Tuesday or today, don't worry, we're gonna get to you. Um there's nothing. Brandy came and talked to me. There's no big ritual here. Uh this is for us to understand what you think you need, why you think you need it? What happens if you get it? What happens if you don't get it? Pretty simple stuff, straightforward. Um where is Dr. Day? She's hiding in the back. You drew the short straw, doc. Come on up. Good morning. Good morning. Um let's kill a moment or two with pleasantries till Mr. Crow shows up. There's a kind of a big piece that's a change today, I think. Typically, we're gonna hear Saban Center, which obviously is uh it's a big big deal, but it's gonna show up under your aegis here. Yes, what was the logic there? For the savings center being under arts and entertainment, um, I think Carly would be able to answer that better than me. So the grouping of the um of the expenditures is really just about um financial uh cost centers. Um it's really much more of a financial reporting issue and not necessarily a department conglomeration issue. So Saban Center is not really under arts and entertainment as far as a department goes. It is it's really it's really its own operating entity and section, it's just because it is within the categorization. So not from an operational standpoint, really from a financial from a financial reporting standpoint. All right, uh see Mr. Crow, we saved you a seat center, center stage down here. Very much appreciated, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Bay. And and Kay, if you would um when you start, just uh ease us down into how you've organized your department and report it. Okay. Um so under Arts and Entertainment, we have the gateway, we have the river market, we have special events, and we have the Mercedes Benz Amphitheater. That all comes under Arts and Entertainment. Um I'd like to point out under special events, we also do all the permitting for the parks, uh, parades, different things like that, um, and uh all the commemorative lighting requests goes through them. So basically for last year, we managed to combine 271 events, process 103 permits, and process 20 commemorative lighting requests. Give us some examples big and small of what you deal with there. Uh for our special events, uh um uh mayor's cup, decaf, holidays on the plaza, tech retreat, um, uh, or some of our bigger events, and then um smaller it I would say is are the processing of the permits, and we we when we do that, um I send y'all good morning. I send y'all um the report that we do every two weeks.