Greg Garrison
al.com
(TNS)
Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin said tourists, visitors and local residents who got out and spent money after the COVID-19 shutdown helped the city have a massive economic rebound.
“I’m going to send a big shout out to our citizens as well as guests and visitors coming into our town,” Woodfin said.
For the fiscal year that started July 1, 2021, and ended June 30, 2022, Birmingham achieved an $81 million budget surplus, he said.
A dramatic increase in shopping, eating at restaurants and going to sports and entertainment events in the city led to a large increase in sale tax revenues, Woodfin said.
“Just from a sales tax standpoint we saw a significant increase in revenue,” Woodfin said. “We also saw the struggle in our ability to hire, which we believe this year will be better.”
The inability to hire to fill all funded positions was also a significant factor in the city’s surplus, he said. That included hiring for police officers, which left as many as hundreds of positions vacant throughout the fiscal year.
“We wanted to make sure the surplus went back to those who did not have probably an additional person to the right or to the left of them,” Woodfin said.
A five percent cost of living adjustment for city employees that passed and went into effect on Tuesday will help reward those employees who had to work in situations where their departments may have been working shorthanded, Woodfin said.
The city approved $60.4 million in spending priorities for the current fiscal year to put the surplus to use.
“We needed to make investments across the city,” Woodfin said. “We can support a new stadium, support a new amphitheater. We can support the upgrades and refurbs of Legacy Arena. But we can also invest in parks, recreation centers, libraries and pools. We can also spend $12 million toward street paving and continue to invest in our sidewalks and city stormwater and other infrastructure needs.”
The budget surplus spending plan includes $13.5 million for the cost of living increase for employees, the second such five percent pay increase in the past year.
About $2.45 million will go to the hiring of new employees for Birmingham Fire and Rescue service. Unlike open police jobs, the city has been able to find a sufficient number of applicants who want to be firefighters, Woodfin said.
The city will use $4.4 million of the surplus on park and recreation center improvements, including repairing swimming pools.
About $3.6 million has been set aside for capital improvements at library branches.
The city will spend $8 million on vehicle fleet upgrades including fire trucks, police vehicles, Department of Transportation vehicles. About $600,000 will be spent on sidewalk repair.
Legion Field, the historic football stadium that hosts the Magic City Classic, will get $4 million for improvements and Rickwood Field, the nation’s oldest former professional baseball stadium, will get $2 million.
The city will invest $15 million for the CrossPlex Family Fun Center, which includes a skating rink and bowling alley at the old Fair Park.
The headlining investment has been the city’s $5 million share to build a $50 million, 9,000-seat amphitheater at the site of the former Carraway hospital, as an entertainment anchor to the Star at Uptown development.
“We think this completes the footprint that we’re looking for in the Uptown district,” said Wardine Alexander, president of the Birmingham City Council.
“Having an amphitheater, football stadium and basketball arena in one footprint provides artists various options,” Woodfin said.
If the Birmingham amphitheater funding goes as planned, construction could start this year and concerts could begin by