Toledo City Council Approves 2020 Budget

Toledo City Council today approved the $281 million operating budget for 2020.

“This budget is a perfect illustration of why we need to pass Issue 1 on March 17,” Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz said. “Having failed to invest in ourselves for almost 40 years, Toledo finds itself way behind other cities in terms of basic services and quality of life. We’re moving in the right direction, but we are still not where we need to be.”

The mayor added: “City Council did a fantastic job squeezing every last penny of savings out of this budget, but it is still not enough. For Toledo to be the sort of city we all know it can be, and to fix our terrible roads once and for all, we need to do what other successful cities do and invest in ourselves. We will have a chance to do that in two weeks by voting for Issue 1.”

The approved budget includes a transfer of $8 million from the capital fund to the general fund this year. That transfer would be eliminated, and prohibited, after Issue 1 passes, Mayor Kapszukiewicz said.

An important theme for the Kapszukiewicz administration has been to create a more transparent process between Toledo City Council, the executive team, and city employees. During the 2019 and 2020 budget planning processes, the administration continued to engage the budget taskforce created to ensure council members were included throughout the entire budget planning process. An additional layer of transparency was added by ensuring council committee chairs met with their respective departments to discuss potential budget solutions and operational needs prior to submitting the draft budget for review.