Birmingham's 2018 budget a flashpoint for Mayor, City Council

It’s been a contentious few days at city hall, with Mayor William Bell and the Birmingham City Council clashing over the city’s proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2018.

Over the weekend, Bell said the council was proposing dangerous cuts in funding for police and parks in its suggested changes to the $428 million budget he submitted to them in May.

Council President Johnathan Austin pushed back, telling WBRC-TV that the council had not finalized a budget plan to present to the mayor.

And those proposed cuts -- $750,000 from the police and $5.6 million from parks -- were absent from a final version of its budget changes that the council released to the media on Tues, Aug. 1, just prior to its regular meeting.

At a press conference, Austin – according to AL.com – accused the mayor of creating “fake news.”

Austin said the version of the council’s budget released last week was not meant to be a final version. "It was always the decision to level fund police and parks and recreation," he said.

Bell had seized on a draft of proposed budget changes that the council took up on Wed., July 26, at a meeting of its committee of the whole.

That draft – Bell’s office supplied a copy to the media on Monday – shifted some money toward schools, weed abatement and demolition of abandoned houses.

Police Chief A.C. Roper and Parks and Recreation Director Kevin Moore released statements on Friday that argued the proposed cuts would have devastating effects.

“We have seen the city’s revenues grow by $65 million over the past few years,” Bell said in a statement on Sunday. “I will not support any budget that cuts the police department in any way or does not continue to clean up our neighborhoods.”

The council meeting

The council voted to amend the city’s storm water protection ordinance and reduce the number of members on the board from seven to five. The change was necessary because the city had been unable to fill the seven slots, according to Julie Bernard of the city’s law department. “We were not getting enough applicants,” she said.

As part of its consent agenda, the council approved an agreement between UAB and the Park and Recreation Board that will have the Blazers playing all their home football games in the 2017 and 2018 seasons at Legion Field.