COLUMBUS, Ohio – Mayor Michael Coleman’s 2014 operating budget takes the city where it has not previously ventured to tread: Into the business of education.
On the heels of a sound defeat at the polls of a proposed 9.01-mill tax levy request by the Columbus City Schools, the budget proposal unveiled at City Hall Friday calls for a $7.5 million expenditure for “educational priorities in the areas of greatest academic impact for children.” The budget does not specify where the money would be spent but it reportedly calls for the creation of a cabinet-level schools official.
The $769.7 million budget is 3 percent larger than the previous spending blueprint.
It also aims to continue replenishing the city’s Rainy Day Fund, increase spending on safety forces and beef up code enforcement as part of an offensive aimed at cracking down on rental properties that are in poor repair.
Coleman is calling for a $7.6 million deposit to the Rainy Day Fund, bringing the total amount to $64 million.
Under Coleman’s plan, 66.4 percent of the General Operating Fund would be set aside for the Department of Public Safety — $292 million for police and $221 million for the fire – which is an increase in spending but a smaller share of the total budget that in 2013, according to reports.
The spending plan calls for $596,132 to fund two new teams of four code enforcement officers as part of what Coleman says will be an “intensified fight against neighborhood blight.”
The budget also seeks to restore all of the city’s recreation centers to full-time status. The $726,200 set aside within the Department of Recreation and Parks’ $40.7 million budget will be used to expand operating hours at the Milo-Grogan, Holton, William H. Adams, Tuttle, Sullivant Gardens and Douglas Recreation Centers from about 20 hours a week, where they have been operating since 2009, to noon to 9:00 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and all day Saturday, beginning in April.
Columbus City Council will consider the budget proposal in the next few weeks and is expected to add some expenditures.