Wilmington City Council Budget Work Session – May 30, 2025
Wilmington City Council Budget Work Session – May 30, 2025
The Wilmington City Council held a special budget work session on Friday, May 30, 2025, at 8:30 a.m. in the Skyline Center, 12th Floor Conference Room. The meeting focused on resolving outstanding questions from prior sessions and allowing council members to propose modifications to the City Manager’s proposed FY 2025-26 budget. Councilmember Joyner left at 9:00 a.m. due to a prior court commitment.
Discussion Items
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Mounted Police Unit Funding: City Manager Tony Caudle explained that the Mounted Police Unit was proposed for elimination as part of $1 million in required cuts from the police department. Chief Williams detailed the unit’s history since 1989, its community engagement role, and the four officers (costing $275,000) and horse operations ($76,000). Councilmember Waddell proposed using the $250,000 Council Contingency Fund (unused for three years) to keep the unit. Councilmember Spears supported retiring the unit, stating he “picks people over animals.” Mayor Saffo and Councilmember Andrews suggested one-year funding without using fund balance. Ultimately, Budget Director Laura Mortell offered increased ABC Board revenue ($200,000 available) and sundry funds to cover the cost. Council agreed to keep the unit for one year using these sources.
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Voyage Youth Jobs Program: Mayor Saffo proposed $40,000 for the Voyage program, citing its success in helping youth obtain jobs. The county had declined funding for the coming year. Council unanimously supported this addition.
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Downtown Business Alliance (DBA): City Manager Caudle noted that $10,000 had already been added back into the budget for DBA, reflecting unanimous council support.
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YMCA Funding Request: Councilmember Rivenbark proposed $15,000 (later discussed as $100,000 per year for multiple years) for the YMCA, which manages city pools. Councilmembers Barnett and Andrews raised concerns about public access, YMCA membership policies, and the lack of detail on community benefits. Staff noted a proposed Human Services Grant transformation (carving out $250,000–$300,000 for impact projects) could be considered in June. Council decided not to include YMCA funding in this budget year but indicated potential future support contingent on access, equity, and county participation.
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CDBG and HOME Adjustments: Budget Director Mortell reviewed adjustments for federal entitlement funds: CDBG allows 40% for administration, HOME allows 10%. The General Fund gap financing shifted to cover CDBG admin, with no net change to the admin account.
Key Outcomes
- Approved modifications for first reading: added $10,000 for DBA; $40,000 for Voyage; and continued the Mounted Police Unit funded by increased ABC revenue and sundry funds.
- Second reading of the budget will reflect these changes and can differ from the first reading.
- YMCA funding deferred; further discussion and a staff proposal on human services grants is scheduled for June 17, 2025.
- Tree medication MOU mentioned but no action taken; staff noted it is moving forward outside the general fund.
Meeting Transcript
That's right. I'm gonna go ahead and do a room call quickly. Council Robinson. Council Member Spears. Council Member Waddell. Council Member Andrews. Here I'm here, Mr. Mayor. I just want to let uh Ms. K for the record. Unfortunately, I had a judge that's require me to come to court this morning. Uh unanticipated understanding that I had this in advance, but nonetheless, I'm gonna have to leave our meeting at nine o'clock, and I apologize for me to be. Okay, chairs here. So everybody's here to counter for the city manager. Your last meeting of your career. Wow, that sounds definitely that's funny. Uh well, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor Pretend members council. Um, today's um uh workshop is to resolve unresolved questions from the previous workshop and to allow you to make some decisions with regard to uh modifications you want to make to the manager's proposed budget. Um, and we have provided some information to you. I'm gonna let um Ms. Mattel go over um uh where we are with regard to the information that's been provided in just a second. I will tell you that because we had to calendar the first reading of the budget uh for next Tuesday. The only modification that's been made thus far in the manager's budget is we have added the ten thousand dollars back into the budget for DDA because we knew there was unanimity on that. Uh we did not feel, or I did not feel like we had unanimity on on any of the remaining unresolved issues, and so uh we will need to make sure we get clarification on those issues, and of course, your second reading can be different than your first reading. Uh, and and there is no issue there. I just wanted you to be aware of what you would be getting your first reading on on Tuesday night, and then the second reading two weeks later. Well good morning. I'm gonna walk you through one other adjustment that we have. It's not advancing. No, so we also got the HUD entitlement funding, which generally in tax core funds, so it's a little bit more confusing than I have a slide for that, and then the agency adjustment that we just talked about. So the federal entitlement from CBDG and home come in, and they also allow um money to go to the admin to help us fund some of it. So 40 for 40 percent for C BDG and 10% for home. So it goes to fund the C CBDG admin, and you can see that the transfer to the admin is going to change by about $9,000. Um, and then how we make the admin poll is using the rest of the money from the general fund. And since we have a dedicated tax rate amount for that, we are taking it from gap financing, and we are just shifting that money to go to CBDG admin to balance it. So nothing in CBD admin changes, just those other funds. And then the last thing we did was uh downtown didn't business line so we did give them 10,000 dollars, and we took that from the Sundry Mrs. Pack down to 146, and that would be all of the changes that we have made since um underneath your packet. We gave you the follow-up from yesterday, just in case you didn't kind of print it out. Um, and now I believe we're gonna have an open discussion if there's anything else you guys want to see in the budget and adjust here. Um the information for council contingency. I know we had some robust discussion last year about council contingency, never occurred to me during that discussion to ask how it was being used, and so uh that came up in our discussion of the last budget meeting, and you were able to pull some information together that shows you haven't touched a dollar of this council contingency for three years, got 250,000 budget the last three years. We haven't touched the dollar up, so it's been just sitting there, and uh and I would propose that we take that for the course not at uh police units. That's three what over three quarters of the way there. Oh, I actually just questioned it. We can't just get a look there. So now to you said yes and no.
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