- Tuesday Omaha City Council held a public hearing to discuss the 2025 city budget
- The 2025 recommended budget is almost 1.7 billion dollars
- Watch to see how neighbors want the money to be spent
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
It's the second week of August which means back to school and budgets, Tuesday Omaha City Council held a public hearing to discuss the 2025 city of budget. And many neighbors were not impressed by how they're planning to spend the money.
"We make Omaha, we pay for Omaha, we are Omaha,"said Dawaun Lamont Hayes.
According to the City of Omaha the 2025 recommended budget is almost 1.7 billion dollars a staggering increase of 11% from the 2024 appropriated budget of 1.5 billion.
The largest department increase comes from the Parks department, their yearly funding rose 81%, a large leap, but not surprising after this year of historic storms.
Public Works is another department that saw a large funding increase, with their budget rising 35%.
Since, Public Works is seeing this increase community members want to see improvements to infrastructure.
"Expand our bike infrastructure, our public transit, our pedestrian safety expanding our urban canopy by planting street trees, and expanding our programs around recycling and waste management," said one speaker in opposition of the new budget.
The biggest piece of the pie by far goes to the police department, that makes up 38% of the entire cities spending. Neighbor Dawuan Lamont Hayes wants to see this city take more interest in the needs of the community.
"When we talk about safety, it's a lot more nuanced than just 911 and a police response, it includes housing includes food, water, shelter, as well as a safe place is to sit places to use the restroom, you know, basic needs and that we do not see in our budget," said Lamont Hayes.
Neighbors tell me they want to see a more collaborative effort from the city when it comes to budget planning.
"I believe that in order for us to effectively move forward, we need to see the implementation of a participatory budgeting process. One that truly invites the input of the community on an annual basis and allows us to identify what our top priorities are and then put dollars there," Lamont Hayes.
The city still has time to make changes to the budget.
