STATEMENT BY MAYOR SANDY STIMPSON: Fiscal Year 2015 Budget Passage

Sep 16th, 2014

Today, the City Council passed the Fiscal Year 2015 budget. This is a crucial step in the Cycle of Positive Change as Mobile works to become the Safest, Most Business and Family-Friendly City in America by 2020.

I commend all City Councilors for their spirited collaboration to reach the necessary compromises for the budget to be passed.

My team and I are reviewing the amendments offered in the passage of this budget. After we’ve evaluated their purpose and impact, we will be able to share more of a response with the public.

I am pleased that in this budget the city will have greater capacity to deliver the basic services the citizens deserve and begin to fix our broken infrastructure. Additionally, as we work harder as a city to serve the people of Mobile, I am pleased the employees will finally realize long awaited raises.

I am deeply disappointed that the City Council took my request for a limited, two-month extension of the additional 1% sales tax and turned it into a long-term tax. The City of Mobile cannot sustain one of the highest sales tax rates in the State and Country. We need to be focused on pro-growth policies while identifying efficiencies that begin to wean the city off of its dependency on this tax. In the face of this extension, we will need to work harder so that our economic development is not impacted, but we must also start to address comprehensive tax reform immediately.

I am also surprised and disappointed that the City Council moved capital monies away from new police and fire-rescue vehicles. Public safety is a fundamental tenet and responsibility of government that cannot be sacrificed. I will work with my team to find the necessary capital to reinstate the originally proposed amounts.

Needless to say, I remain committed to working closely with the City Council as we continue to move Mobile forward. We finally have a chance to become the city that realized its potential. Today is a good day for Mobile and it will only get better.